


Don't Tell Clark

by Tvieandli



Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics), Superboy (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), robin (1993), superboy (1994), young justice (1998)
Genre: 90s -2000s nostalgia, Baby Fic, Found Family, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Delusions, casual discussion of abortion, cruel fluff, discussion of casual underage drug use, pre 52, slice of life heroes, slow burn fluff, underage homemaking, underage parenthood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-04 22:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10292063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tvieandli/pseuds/Tvieandli
Summary: Kon was back what should anything matter? He could just keep pushing it out of his mind he could-At some point Conner was going to find out.Conner was like Clark, and maybe he'd been able to keep Clark from noticing so far but Conner was so much closer than Clark. So much more invested.Tim couldn't go anywhere without Superboy's interest trained on his movements. Kon-el was his guardian angel. His constant watchdog. A comfort. An anxiety.





	1. Deliberate Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> went back and edited this will be editing Ch 2 also but still no real Beta just me and my jerkoff hand

It had been 7 months 2 weeks 3 days when he saw Kon again. His face in Paris, something that had been a constant personal haunting since Superboy's casket had been lowered into the ground, not seeming solid, not appearing real. Tim hadn't realized the other boy was anything more than a common hallucination. By the time he'd gotten home, and Kon's life had been confirmed by friends and family, it had been 8 months on an exact.

Time flies when the depression gets you. Tim doesn't fly he falls. Kon flies. All Kryptonian clones fly.

8 months. 

Much too late to do anything. Way too late to be rational. Far to late to correct for error.

He tried not to think about it.

Or ovens, bread making, deadlines, due dates, anything that might bring it up. 

Kon was back what should anything matter? He could just keep pushing it out of his mind he could-

At some point conner was going to find out. 

At some point he wasn't going to be able to hide it anymore.

Cassie had been so close to finding out once. And Conner was- Kon was a Kryptonian. His senses were so much more acute, so much more developed than anyone else's. Conner was like Clark, and maybe he'd been able to keep Clark from noticing so far but Conner was so much closer than Clark. So much more invested.

Tim couldn't go anywhere without Superboy's interest trained on his movements. Kon-el was his guardian angel. His constant watchdog. A comfort. An anxiety. 

If there was anything Robin had learned in his time working under Bruce it was that lies were an armor, truth was a weakness. But if there was anything He'd learned about half alien clones from his time leading Young Justice and the Teen Titans it was that if he wasn't honest and Kon found out the consequences cut uncomfortably deep.

But he was lucky because death made a clone busy. Kon couldn't stay, and with his Superman proofing Tim figured he had a bit of time to keep the boy of steel off his tracks.

First he had to make assurances. 

The lab wasn't in Gotham. This had never been an issue in relation to Bruce or his crusade. It didn't have anything to do with him or his city or his family.

No, this was a Titans issue. Even Dick would have agreed it was a team thing. Robin had gotten to know Kon-el through the teams they'd been on together. His grief, the pain of loosing that connection had stayed strictly outside Gotham's city limits. As if everything that happened outside his home town was suspended the moment he was back again. Like nothing else was real while he was there.

So it was in California. San Francisco. In a vault he'd built from a broken cable car in an old access tunnel under the city. Somewhere safe and secluded. Somewhere he could grieve.

Cassie had nearly found it once. He'd never forget the embarrassment, the knowing looks on her face. Like she was saying 'you think you're so slick don't you but i know your Christian name because my dead boyfriend would whisper it in my ear when we fucked' without saying anything. 

Or maybe she'd just been mad he won again and he was projecting, but he doubted it. 

There was hardly anything subtle about Superboy. Especially not how he felt about the people around him. 

And no one had taken Kon's death like Robin had.

Only the team had seen it. But Cassie had been an integral part of the team since it had been under a completely different name. 

She was the figurehead to his shadow king in every way and there wasn't a chance in hell she hadn't noticed the dynamic. Hell Conner had only pointed it out four million times. 

She knew. Probably better than anyone else. 

She knew.

But she hadn't found the most damning evidence. For now it was still his secret. They were still his secret.

There'd never been anything he'd done in his life he wanted to be able to pass off as a mistake more than them. They were a mistake. A horrible mistake. But he'd tried so hard for them, how could he say they weren't intentional. An intentional mistake. And they were getting big now.

He had to wonder if Superboy had ever looked like this, floating in his incubator in Cadmus labs. So tiny, and delicate. Smaller than a loaf of bread. 

No Conner was one of those giant breeds who grew like weeds, reaching adolescence in under six weeks. 

Only ex project members could remember what nutrient paste they must have pumped through his umbilical hook up Tim was sure. The new management had expunged all records of Superboy's gestation process. According to Robin's sources the information was only kept in the minds of DNAlien telepaths. Not exactly hackable. 

Subject 1 twitched in its tank, sending ripples through the solution it was suspended in and itself into a lazy summersault. He watched with cool detachment. 

A few weeks ago, these deliberate accidents had been the only things he had left of Conner Kent. Now they were a gamble he didn't know if he could risk. 

Near three months of trial and error for their conception. Excuses. Justifications. The insistence his only goal was to have Kon back. Not that they'd ever been Conner. Not that he'd ever really believed they would be.

They weren't. And how would Conner take that? Or them? Especially considering the history of Match's existence. Tim wasn't stupid. Robin had never forgotten about Match.

His hand twitched in his glove, sending ripples through the air it was suspended in and itself drifting lazily over the button he'd pressed so many times on so many failed attempts.

Five months and four days ago he'd caught his success. And that had been right after Match. In the aftermath of his reappearance. 

He'd made the excuse to himself that he needed his own genes in the mix for a balance. Fucked that it'd worked. 

They weren't Conner.

They were Conner's sons.

Had Conner ever even wanted children?

A question that lead to more questions. Ones Tim couldn't possibly pursue. 

Robin's hand twitched again and dropped on the desk, fore finger and thumb braced uselessly around his exit strategy.

The monitors reported two solid heartbeats. Brainwaves caught up in tiny kryptonian hybrid dreams. 

What the hell was he doing? What the hell had he done? Couldn't he have just gone out and gotten a dog or something? No dogs pissed and shit on things. Tim hated dogs. Not that a ba-

He looked at the tanks.

Not that a science fair project that jumped the shark was any less wont to piss and shit on things. It was just about their only function. Even more so than it was a puppy's only function and a b- hybrid clone didn't grow nearly so fast without the help of Cadmus' telepathic walking libraries of data.

All readings nominal. Prenatal nutrients due to run out in 156 hours. Recommended birth time 118 days. 

Tim swallowed. 

He didn't have much time. A little under four months. 

He needed a plan to tell Kon-el about his secret progeny. Their-

Robin stepped down from behind the monitor display and approached the little floating globs of flesh. Not too long ago they'd just been a pair of anuses in balanced ph solution. It was amazing how far they'd come. Just a few months. From two tiny assholes to two tiny babies. They looked like babies now. Real babies. real infants. 

Kon-el's sons. Superboy's sons. Conner Kent's sons. 

Tim pressed the tip of his finger against subject 2's tank. Responsively the tiny thing kicked its leg, turning itself so it's little face was fully visible, scrunched in an expression that seemed very close to Superboy's annoyed face. It looked somewhere between hideous and adorable on the face of a premature infant. 

Absently he traced the smushed little features on the glass, watching as the baby responded to the imperceptible sound of his finger gently brushing the surface. Bit of a light sleeper maybe.

just like-

There was a sudden noise behind him. Loud and deafening in the small space of the modified cable car the lab had been built in. It echoed off confined walls, like a massive pair of life jaws sinking into the metal. 

Tim didn't think before Robin had expanded his staff and dropped into stance with the tanks to his back. Anxiety thrummed loud in his ears as he scanned the now empty hole where the door had been a few seconds ago. Slowly. Quietly. A figure stepped up into the place it had been, silhouetted in the dark, standing about 5 foot 7 inches, shoulder length hair, skin tight suit.

'Cassie,' Tim said in greeting. He had the thought that maybe he should drop his stance but it didn't seem to manage to send any impulses to his nerves.

'Robin,' she responded just as coldly. 'Thought I'd find you here.'

'It's Red Robin now,' Tim corrected.

Cassie stepped farther into the car without saying anything and Tim got the distinct feeling she hadn't even registered what he'd just said or the snark he'd said it with. Her eyes were trained hard on the tanks behind him. The infants he was subconsciously and unquestionably defending from her very presence.

Her face was balanced when she finally stepped into the odd glow of the digital light in the makeshift lab.

'Tim, what are-' she started and trailed off. When she closed her mouth again it fitted into a hard line. She swallowed behind it, eyes darting from Tim to the tanks and back again. 'Are those-?' 

'Clones,' Tim said tersely, finally managing to drop his stance and collapse his staff. 'Conner's clones.' 

'I never imagined this was what was in here when I found it,' she said in a hurried, hushed tone. 'If I had I never would've-'

'What? Let me have my privacy?' Tim asked.

She visibly shrank at that, drawing her arms in and up the way she used to so often when they'd been Young Justice without all the weight of their current title. It felt a kind of vindictive good to know he still had that power over her even if she was now their team leader.

'By Hera's grace, it's not y-'

'Not my what,' he cut in again. 'My right? My genes? You don't know that,' he snapped.

'But you just sai-' 

'Honestly, Cassie, this is none of your business,' Tim snapped. 

The shocked look on her face made her cheeks and lips seem even paler in the dim glow of the monitors. 'How can you say that?' she asked, incredulous. 'Tim he was my boyfrie-'

'Well he's my Best Friend! and if you say anything else he's probably gonna pick up on this conversation and be here within seconds and i haven't come up with a way to tell him-' Tim stopped.

He could feel it. The change in the air when Superboy was within ten feet of him. The invisible pressure of his TTK pressing trough the negative space between them, like Kon was so eager to be close to him he couldn't wait until he was within arm's reach. The skin under his suit prickled into goose bumps as the force field flattened out against his back. 

Kon was getting better at keeping that under control. Keeping his 'hands' to himself. Or maybe Tim was getting rusty. It had been a while. Too long. Such a long time. Despite the dread of the connotation of him being there, It felt good. Something about the contact calmed him down.

'Kon,' he said, voice low, level, desolate. 

'Tim,' Conner responded. 

'Didn't expect to see you here,' Tim said, leaning back into the pressure spreading out across his spine.

'Didn't expect you to get in a fight with my,' Superboy started, pausing pregnantly, attention on his TTK drifting in a way that told Tim he was locking eyes with Cassie, 'Ex.'

Tim shivered.

Cassie shifted her weight awkwardly from one leg to the other.

'What's this?' he asked then.

Tim could feel his attention shift to the tanks on his right. A cold feeling settled deep in his stomach.

'Wow,' Conner said in a breathy sort of way. 'A couple of babies?'

Tim nodded without bothering to look back at him. At them. the three of them. Standing together. Standing so close together. Like a family. For the first time. 

'And these are mine?'

Tim made a strangled sort of noise in agreement, and squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could so he didn't have to keep looking at Cassie.

A tense silence stretched out in the old cable car. 

Tim opened his eyes.

It felt like time had slowed down. Cassie was standing in front of him looking shocked and horrified, almost clutching at her throat. He could still feel Kon behind him, movements broadcast through the connection of his forcefield. 

'Cool,' Conner said softly. 

Tim turned to look over his shoulder, and with some emotion he couldn't name or understand, watched Superboy reach out and press his fingers to the glass. 

The upset, wriggling little thing inside started to calm itself. 

'Wow,' Conner said again.

Cassie's hands started relaxing back down to her sides. 

The forcefield pressed into Tim's back wrapped a bit tighter around him. A hug. A hybrid human/kryptonian clone's version of a hug.

Silence. Less tense this time. More confused. Tim watched Conner's hands press into the glass of the tank like a child's hands pressing against the glass of an aquarium, looking up at all the beauty of a coral reef reproduced in front of them for the first time. Awe in his face. Pure unbridled, unmitigable awe.

'You made these?' he asked after what seemed like a long time. 

Tim nodded again.

'Awe that's,' he paused, taking a deep breath. 'That's fuckin' far out man.'

'Conner?' Cassie asked.

'Yea, babe.'

'Are you-'

'I dunno, really,' he said when she trailed off, pressing closer to the incubation tank he'd been looking into. 'Little overwhelmed actually. Imagine I mean- Fuck I just got hearsed for real after everything I've done to dodge the reaper he still manages to hearse my ass and I went in the ground with everything all fucked up and I come out and it's all working itself out- We're being responsible, taking responsibility, doing the things we need to. Not lying to each other anymore like we've been. The three of us, I mean, we were so fucked up, but now it's not so bad anymore. And I got fucking kids!'

'Yeah,' Cassie said uneasily, voice sounding less like the leader she'd become and more like the insecure girl they'd first met her as.

And then she gave Tim a look. A hard look. An angry look. Cold and mean and cutting the way only Cassie was. Like she was saying 'You think you're so slick but i know Tim is hiding something that Red Robin is deliberately forgetting and i know that something is a girl named Tam.'

Or maybe she was just mad he won again and he was projecting but he doubted it.

They'd nearly died side by side for years. 

She knew


	2. New Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> still no beta
> 
> most of this story was and likely will be written high at 3 am

Superboy had always been a bit of a dreamer. from the moment Tim had met him he'd been immature, prone to flights of fancy, impulsive. this wasn't much different. just more domestic. but Tim couldn't tell why he was so surprised. in hindsight, looking through all the evidence he had to have been a fool not to know that Kon was ready to settle down and avoid abandonment.

maybe it was a Kryptonian curse to long for family but never have one.

Kon was only half Kryptonian though. 

but maybe settling down with an alien wasn't a great idea. especially an alien hybrid whipped up with the last remaining DNA samples of a dead race. how could someone research Kryptonian psychology, or physiology. this was flying blind. Bruce had a lot of things to say about flying blind. how it was stupid. that Dick was the only person who could really pull it off, and even his luck was bound to run out.

if only Bruce was-

there was a lot of advice a Robin needed from his Batman, and clearly Dick-

clearly Dick's luck was running out.

in the aftermath of their meeting, Tim had begged both Cassie and Conner for silence. he had good reasons and most of them were pretty apparent. mainly that cloning both Kryptonians and humans was currently illegal in basically every country on earth. which no one had to explain in present company. everyone there agreed that military intervention was to be avoided at all costs. at which point Conner had raised the copyright issue on the Superman franchise, the potential for government intervention trough lawsuits wielding Clark as a battering ram against the fact that as a clone Superboy's status as a sentient being rather than an object or asset was the subject of high debate in basically any situation where the court decided to intervene in his life.

he'd said something about being Lex Luthor's discarded knock off Kryptonian sex doll, body guard, dream son triple threat and refused to say anything else about it.

Tim didn't even need to mention the selfish justification of keeping Clark out of the loop because he was worried the reigning Kryptonian patriarch would have a will to enforce on any part of his continued line.

but maybe Kon wasn't as on board with the idea of a secret as Tim had hoped. 

or maybe Kryptonian's were partial to large non nuclear family groups. not that Clark reflected that but Clark currently had no hope of reproduction in the face of christian morals imposed by small town nurturing. that was an ocean of difference away from Superboy's complete lack of nurturing considering he was incubated until he was equivalently 16, and only equipped with a basic education and some trigger words. no life skills or moral creed, just the instruction to listen when orders were given. 

still you might wonder if most Kryptonian's rebel against authority like that. even Clark only ever listened to the authority of his mother (the authority his father had being lended from the woman herself) or Lois.

so potentially a strong matriarch was essential in a Kryptonian household, and Kon instinctively knew this? that could be why he was suddenly insisting Kara needed to move in with them when they found a proper place to 'fledge a couple of twin terrors from that dead old rock' as Superboy had so eloquently put it.

if that was the case it was Tim's fault for thinking this could work when he wasn't anything close to a strong mother figure. that was an-

inoptimal? thought

he didn't express it. who the hell had words for a thought like that anyway?

he certainly didn't. 

Tim Drake had never been a Dick Grayson with words. he wasn't even a Jason Todd with words. banter wise he'd been a total flop. 

Good thing Damian loved to show him up in everything.

Conner Kent knew the face of reluctance though, and Tim couldn't even have silent reservations without them being taken as a challenge when it came to collaborative effort between them.

'okay so what do you know about raising a Kryptonian child?' he asked, annoyance starting to become increasingly obvious in his tone.

Tim didn't have anything to say to that.

's'what i thought!' Kon concluded. Tim watched him cross his arms. like it was over.

sometimes he thought the safe house he'd borrowed from Jason on a favor wasn't even close to big enough for the two of them to coexist. maybe this had been rash. how could this factor in well for a child? let alone two. and as Conner had so kindly reminded him that morning, he was forgetting to account for Krypto in all his plans. two children and a dog.

oh.

maybe they did need extra hands.

not that Tim would ever get past his ego as a member of Batman's crusade enough to admit he couldn't handle things solo.

'Kara's too close to Clark,' Tim said flatly.

Conner's nostril's flared, and his eyes went wide to the quicks but he calmed himself down before he even opened his mouth. 

oh. that was something as well wasn't it?

Conner deferred to Tim's authority as well as if not better than he'd ever deferred to Cassie's. it had been a hard won respect, but Tim had earned it. 

'the only people who know anything about this are Ma and Kara but if you're so stubborn i'm at least calling Roxy then. i mean i don't know about Rex and kids but he's a push over honestly and he never fucked with my home life the way he fucked my career,' Kon suggested.

'so your crooked con man ex agent-'

'and his police academy graduate daughter who was rushed through her training into the SCU on the islands,' Conner interrupted.

Tim didn't have anything to say to that either.

'you're sure you can trust her?' he asked instead.

'she's literally my flesh and blood, Tim.'

'that's not even po-'

'it's a long story but trust me she's my sister and she's the kind of person who's comes through in any pinch. loyal like anything and good with the dog too. he used to think she was his girlfriend back when he was a puppy i swear.'

'as long as he keeps the lipstick in the tube around her in front of the kids,' Tim snarked.

Conner gave him an amused look over the rim of his coffee cup.

'so we know we need a lot of land, and money's not an object with just your bank account alone which means it doesn't matter if my assets and accounts are only at my disposal with Clark's fucking permission,' Conner said, going over the gathered facts.

'now the big question is would it be safer to sever ties and go dark or should we try to find somewhere close enough to our respective haunts that we can continue our costumed careers without raising suspicion,' Tim explained.

'that'd mean we hadda make excuses to disappear our civilian identities,' Kon said.

'Time Drake is a Wayne now and they've always had flakey affairs with the public eye plus he's still pretty underground at the moment.'

'Yeah and i guess i could tell Ma and Pa i'm gonna set myself back up in the cleft of the great peach to deal with some teenaged angst about my proven mortality and all that, then tell my school i'm moving back to the big city and straight glide my way outta town without so much as a sideways glance from the locals considering they all think i'm Clark's bastard son anyway,' Superboy reasoned lightly.

'not that they're wrong.'

'right?' 

'there's the canyons between the Palisades and Gotham Heights,' Tim suggested. 

'you wanna raise our kids in a body dump,' Conner deadpanned.

'with a cop and a conman. it's a sitcom,' Tim snapped.

Kon fixed him with a withering look.

'I'm gonna go make a phone call,' he said then, setting his coffee mug down on the table and walking out of the kitchen. 

Tim bit down annoyance by stealing the mug and draining its dregs. The left over sweetness of Kon-el's saliva on the rim was the only thing the cut the bitterness.

Shit, he thought, they were gonna have issues explaining to school nurses that the children weren't diabetic they were creating excess sugar as a byproduct of yellow sunlight conversion.

Tim tried not to listen in on the phone conversation in the other room. a temptation that might have been a bit too attractive to avoid. but it wasn't easy to  
make out what was being said.

Rex and Roxy Leech turned up two days later with luggage, yelling loudly at their cab driver from the safe house's front stoop. 

Tim hurried them inside, wrestling with tote bags and wishing more than he'd wished for anything since he'd wished for Kon back that someone could have some damn subtlety.

'last i hear you're dead next thing i know you're calling me saying there's a baby on the way! Where's the girl then?' Roxy demanded instantly once she was inside, eyes scanning right over Tim's head. 

Kon offered her a forced smile. 'Rox, chill, there's no girl. you know you're the only lady in my life right now.' 

'oh don't even start with that,' she snapped. 'Not funny S.B.'

'common Roxy i ain't seen you in a hot sec and you're gonna walk in in a tiff?' he asked, tone light enough to melt the ice that had frozen her hands to her hips.

'oh gimme a hug you big ass,' she demanded then.

Tim watched as Kon's arms caught her around the waist, and wondered if maybe he was coming down with a cold.

'Hey, kid. how ya been?' Rex asked sidling up to the two of them with all the smarm a toad in a human suit could manage.

'so how's there a baby emergency and no girls?' Roxy asked before Kon could answer, pushing away from the super hug she'd earned.

Conner gave Tim a nervous look over her shoulder. 'well, this is-'

'Robin,' Tim cut in, speaking from his jerked knee rather than his mouth.

'as in Batman and Robin?' she asked suspiciously.

Tim kept a straight face but Conner shrugged noncommittally. 

'guess you can call him Vinny,' he offered. 

Tim wanted to slap him. 

'alright how's he play in?' she pressed.

'yeah what's the catch here? do you have a way to spin this for the press?' Rex cut in.

'Nonono okay listen,' Conner said. 'Robin as in Batman and Robin, Formerly, as in Red Robin at the current time, as in my-' Kon shot Tim another nervous look.

'i'm his,' Tim started, stopped, hesitated, 'partner,' he said awkwardly.

Rex looked between the two of them in confusion as realization slowly dawned on Roxy's face.

'i thought you had to wait a long time for adoption,' she said.

'adoption?' Rex asked.

'we're not-' Conner started.

'adopting,' Tim finished bitingly.

'you know,' Kon took over again, 'how i was dead a little while there, well.' he stopped, huffed air out his nose and started again. 'well Robin and i'd kinda had a thing and he took it a little hard and long story short there's a couple of second gen Superboys incubating under San Fran right about now.'

'honestly i don't know why i'd didn't figure that first looking at ya considering you're such a matched couple,' Rex Leech cut in.

'yeah they look more like siblings than S.B. an me do,' Roxy muttered.

'why didn't we ask Cassie to help out?' Tim whispered, low enough he was sure only Conner could hear him.

'do you honestly think that would have gone any better?' Conner countered.

it was a fair point.

there were a lot of points now that they had so many people living in such a confined space. mostly the points of mixed personalities facing off against each other in the confinement of the safe house, but at least with so many other people around Tim didn't have the energy to pick fights with Conner.

how could he when Conner wasn't the most infuriating person in the house now? Tim couldn't decide if he was less fond of Rex or Roxy but neither of them had managed to impress him. at dinner that night the stupidly tense conversation about the disruption of Roxy's work was one he passed on. as well as blatantly ignoring everything to do with whatever Rex said.

the embarrassment of referring to Superboy as his partner in front of what was essentially his family lasted nearly a week as they narrowed down housing possibilities.

not that narrowing was working. 

it was Conner's opinion they find someplace rural, far away from any noise or limelight that might disturb the development of two Kryptonian babies under a yellow sun. Roxy thought Hawaii was the only legitimate option because she didn't want to transfer to another police force. Rex, showing himself to be the spineless leech he was named after had no personal opinion so cashed in on his daughter's. unfortunately for them it turned out Kon was exiled form the state and Tim refused to leave the immediate Gotham area.

after a full week of this, the stress was starting to eat him up. he made a few excuses for an absence and slipped out into the city to patrol the night. maybe relieve some stress. Conner gave him a knowing look but didn't say anything. not like he needed to be right next to Tim to keep tabs on the situation.

of course Gotham nights had their own stressors that weren't even removed from the idea of family.

of all the nights to run across fellow members of Bruce's crusade, why'd it have to be this one?

seeing Dick in the batsuit was a bitter feeling. not too many years ago Dick had been the Batman he worked under and they'd shared a bit of a promise about being each other's partners. broken promises were something Dick wore pressed into his skin though. Tim didn't know why he was surprised.

thankfully Damian was stashed somewhere far enough away that Tim couldn't even spot the little gremlin watching them.

'heard you were back in town,' Dick said past the voice modulator on the cowl. it was odd to hear him behind the bat calibrations. the deep gravel of Bruce's coverup voice was a harsh contrast to the normal twittering sound of his Nightwing settings.

Tim grunted in acknowledgement. 

'sources say something about a familiar alien presence in your safe house,' Dick pressed.

Tim grunted again. 'not my safe house,' he said.

'oh?' Dick asked, voice pitched unnaturally low for a tone that should have been an upswing knowing his general manner of speech.

'Jason leant it to me,' Tim explained. he was fully aware Dick was sore over the way Jason had been cutting him out in favor of other local costumed talent. like Tim. who Dick had lost favor with and Jason had tried to kill multiple times.

the amount that Dick's body tensed under the batsuit should have gone unnoticed by most people in Tim's position but Tim caught sight of it with a tempered, vitriolic glee.

Dick grunted this time. 

'so what brings Conner to the area?' he asked, conspicuously changing the subject away from his hurt feelings.

Tim thought about that a moment, really not sure what lie to offer. 'suppose you wouldn't understand family matters,' he settled on.

Dick managed to mask most of his hurt. 'low blow,' the batman said, slowly approaching Tim's roost on the edge of the roof they were on and sitting down next to him. 

'what kind of family matters involve Kon?' he asked, switching off his modulator so that Tim could hear his real voice past the uniform. 

'nothing involving you,' Tim snapped.

Dick looked at him impassively from behind the white lenses of the cowl, all emotion successfully hidden in that moment, then turned his head to watch the skyline. 'hate to break it to you,' he said, 'but Conner's been like a brother to me as long as i've known him.'

there was a terse, pregnant silence. 'almost as much as you are,' he added into it.

Tim swallowed thickly.

'Robin,' Dick began again, sending shivers of too much unnamable emotion down Tim's spine because that was his name. that was His Name. how long had it been since Dick had acknowledged that He was Robin. 'if there's anything you need help with, you know i'm always here.'

all the emotion in Tim's shivering seemed to suddenly accumulate in his stomach, nerves churning together like a boiling soup of bad ideas and half formed self understandings. he looked at Dick, looked at the granite facade they were crouched on, opened his mouth to speak, and vomited onto the front of Red Robin's tunic.

Dick's abject horror managed to show itself through the fixed features of the cowl as Tim puked again. floodgate rules: once it starts it don't stop.

Nervously Batman put his hands on Tim's shoulders and pulled him back off the ledge in case a convulsion as he heaved sent him spiraling head first into traffic 40 stories below.

'i'm-' he tried but couldn't manage past bile.

'fine, yeah i can tell,' Dick snarked back, setting him firmly on his feet on the rooftop proper. 

Tim didn't last standing long before he was on his hands and knees wretching. for what it was worth, Dick didn't say anything and turned away so he could have his privacy in sickness. Tim had always used to see the privacy Dick allowed him to keep as care. now it came off as the opposite but he was still glad not to suffer the humiliation of being ill in front of a former partner.

vomiting didn't last long until it was replaced with dry heaving. he hadn't been eating very well lately. he might have been weaning himself off his bat cocktail of performance enhancing drugs at Conner's request but the whole situation was still too nerve wracking to facilitate a return of appetite. after about thirty seconds, the dry heaving stopped too.

'hey little d,' Tim could hear Dick radioing in to Damian. 'head back to The Help's location. i've got a situation to handle and it think it's a little boring for your tastes.'

there was a silence as Tim resented being insulted to a ten year old.

'by boring i mean emotional,' Dick corrected.

Tim couldn't hear Damian on the other end of the line but he could see Dick's body language and how it tensed with whatever the kid said next.

'no. no girls. this is a family matter.'

silence. Dick bristling. 'you oughta treat your brother better,' he snapped then before adding, 'i'll see you at the Tower around three. And try not to make Alfred's life hard.'

Dick had the sense to clean the sick off Tim's clothes before bundling him into the car. it was a strange nostalgic feeling, driving in Bruce's old wheels back up to the palisades. back home. to the manor where Tim had once belonged.

the cave felt empty around him when Dick helped him out of the car. both of them stood by the lockers and stripped in silence, refusing to exchange so much as a glance in the other's direction until they were in more sensible clothes.

'i get if you don't wanna talk to me,' Dick said. 'bu-'

Tim held up a hand to stop him. 'i made some mistakes, let's leave it at that,' he said.

'Tim.' the tone of Dick's voice, the pleading, how emotionally invested it seemed. even if it was just another Grayson production Tim fell for it.

'Kon was- i lost everything Dick. my family. him. and i couldn't take it. i just wanted him back i wanted any part of him back i figured i could handle everything else if he was there.'

Dick watched him knowingly but Tim ignored it. 

'so i cloned him. i don't know. it wasn't even really cloning, and i think he knows that and i couldn't pass this all off as an accident and now it's all moving so fast.'

'cold feet,' Dick observed.

'i'm about to have a family,' Tim told him.

'and you're so young,' Dick agreed. 'the commitment's daunting. i get that.'

'not just that. there's all these preparations and they're half way through term i don't have that much time to get everything ready for a pair of twin kryptonians.'

'things always did get a little nuts when we brought our families together,' Dick said. 'what sort of preparations?'

'a secluded house close enough to Gotham that Red Robin can continue operation but far enough away that they won't be in the action.'

'what about staying here?' Dick asked.

'and risk Damian dropping in on m- Conner's children? that doesn't sound like a good idea.'

'what about your parents old place?'

'you mean the house my father had to sell when we went under financially?' Tim asked.

'yeah. Bruce bought it,' Dick said in a chirping tone


	3. old homes

the old house was filled with old crap. forgotten crap. the crap his family had left behind. things they didn't have room for and couldn't afford to upkeep any longer. 

Conner's boots met the hard floors with a soft click.

'man i never saw this place from the front entrance,' he said, looking up into at the shadowed arches of the ceiling. 'seems like a grand place when it was up in order'n all.' there was a pause, filled only by the sound of Tim rummaging through boxes. 'now it's just gloomy.'

'it was always like that,' Tim responded flippantly, tossing a couple balls of scrap fabric over his shoulder. 

'gloomy, empty house,' he muttered as Conner floated off the ground floor up to the second floor bannister and landed lightly in the railing.

'little big for my tastes,' Kon projected, voice echoing off the high rafters and bouncing against the gilding of the chandelier.

Tim huffed, dropped the cardboard flaps of the box and turned to look up at him. 'you don't seem too put out by that,' he said.

Conner cocked his head. bird like. it gave him the feeling of talking to a big black crow. 'honestly all i can think is Rex is gonna love it.'

Rex did love it.

Tim couldn't help choking on the bourgeois attitude he salted the air with on blustering trough the front door. 

'never knew you capes could make this kinda money!' he shouted into the empty space. Tim worried his eyes might roll out of his head. 'movin up. movin up. movin up! got this whole world on the pad of my finger now! new house like this-'

'it's actually a family home,' Tim cut in. 

Rex turned on him with new eyes at the realization that he was old money. though Tim would call himself half money instead considering his father's economic status.

'what lake did you catch a fish like that in S.B.?' Roxy asked.

Conner gave her a winning smile. 'oh y'know,' he said, somewhere around Gotham Harbor honestly. they got they nothin but rarest fish in the sea.'

Tim turned his body away from the group in something between mortification and giddiness and busied himself by picking up the first box he saw.

'well let's try to get things organized,' he said stiffly. 'try and figure out what to do with all this,' he trailed off, looking down at the open box in his arms with nothing but crap in it.

'shit?' Kon suggested knowingly.

'yeah.'

Roxy made a thoughtful sound in the back of her throats and crossed her arms over her chest. 'looks like it's gonna be a lot of work to clean up this dump,' she said.

Tim felt the first inkling of something that could have been fondness toward her at that. it was refreshing after dealing with her father's general behavior toward everything. finally a sober view of the situation.

'lord knows what we're gonna do with all this space,' she continued. 'what the hell do you put in an entry way this big anyway?'

'pomp,' Tim told her. 

'can't imagine we'll have much of that considering the circumstances,' Conner joked.

there was a massive amount of crap. crap on the floor. crap high on recesses in walls. crap in the rafters. 

Tim even found crap behind crap when he was moving boxes out of an old fireplace and it's back panel suddenly slid open, revealing a surprisingly large room hidden in the wall behind it.

'great,' he said softly, poking his head into the room, 'more crap.'

'cult crap looks like,' Conner said leaning past Tim to poke his head in as well.

'hey what are youse two weirdo kids doin with your heads in the chim-e-ney?' Rex asked.

Tim stepped into the annexed room without acknowledging him. he had a vague recollection of the inside from some point in his childhood but it wasn't solid. more a vague feeling of de ja vu

a citchy round table with overly plush arm chairs around it, and one of those Dr Dee esque black scrying glasses on a cloth dead center of the display.

'gotta love Gotham,' Conner quipped behind him. 'this cult was filled with such upstanding members of society they even read the bible,' he added, picking up a large, ornate, leather bound copy of the King Jame's.

'most cults do,' Tim told him.

Conner made an amused noise in his throat and put the book down.

'so you knew about all this?' he asked then, as Rex bustled in, gawking at the hideaway conference room.

'oh jeeze,' the fat little man said in a rushed little tone.

'more or less,' Tim told Conner, continuing to blatantly ignore Rex Leech's existence entirely.

's'at mean?' Kon pressed.

'my mom was a little extra catholic i guess,' he explained.

'ah,' Conner agreed, clearly not understanding what Tim meant at all. 

'not too familiar with religion? Tim asked jokingly.

Conner gave him a wide smile. 'Catholicism more like. y'know out in Small Ville its like a big old Party Rock video but-' he cut himself off to sample old memes complete with associated dance, 'Every day we're Lutheran.'

Tim wouldn't have admitted it got him to smile. it was embarrassing honestly. maybe it was also a bit endearing though.

Conner really did have his moments. most of them were kind of stupid though. Tim turned away from them mechanically and picked a robe off one of the chair seats.

'guess we should throw all this out,' he said flatly.

Conner's disappointment at a lack of response to his joke was palpable.

'no kidding,' Rex threw in. 'finding a place like this in your new house has gotta be bad juju.'

'hey Kon what do you think about making this the nursery,' Tim deadpanned.

the look on Rex's face was almost worth the displeasure of knowing him. 

Dick showed up to help out at three o'clock. Normal bat rising hours. Tim couldn't be more thankful he didn't bring Damian along. 

'hey neighbor,' he chirped when Tim met him at the door.

Tim offered him a labored smile and ushered him in.

'we've just been going through old boxes and furniture, trying to figure out what stays and what goes,' Tim explained as he lead Dick toward the his mother's old library den where they'd moved after sorting through things in the foyer.

Dick made a noise of agreeable understanding. 'what kinda stuff are we goin through?' he asked.

Tim glanced scant at a pile of boxes against a wall in the hallway. 'oh y'know crap,' he said.

Roxy was standing by one of the bookshelves when Tim let himself back into the library, holding some old leather bound brown thing without an inscription on the spine.

'hey Vince Vaughn take a look at this,' she said, holding the book out pages open so he could see a large drawing of some grotesque monster. wings, and heads and too many eyes.

'oh yeah the bestiary,' he said, taking the book from her. he took a second to leaf trough it's hardly familiar pages and shoved it back on the shelf probably a bit harder than he should have.

he'd always had a response to true depictions of angels, and it wasn't anything like the ecstasy people described in the presence of the lord. it was more a gut sinking dread. the feeling he was constantly watched.

'your mom had some interesting pastimes,' Dick put in.

'as if the Waynes haven't ever gotten themselves involved in cults,' Tim said flatly.

'i know the statistics,' Dick responded, tone light with lack of caring. 'but i don't know the pretty girl,' he continued, holding out a hand.

'Dick,' Tim warned, but Roxy was already smiling bashfully and offering a hand back to him.

'Name's Roxy,' she flirted.

'Roxy Hart?' Dick guessed.

Roxy blushed and drew her hand back. 'oh you men and your flattery,' she laughed. 'careful or it might get you somewhere.'

Dick flashed her a winning smile.

'Im Dick Grayson,' he responded, introducing himself. 'I've known-' he trailed off, looking at Tim.

'Alvin,' Tim said.

he could feel Dick roll his eyes. 'since he was tiny,' he continued. 'We met at a circus a few days before i got adopted and moved in next door. Wild huh?'

'yeah,' Roxy agreed, 'wild. So what's the statistics you mentioned?' she asked then.

Dick made a noise of amusement as if to laugh it off. 'oh just y'know how 70% of Gothamites will be fiercely loyal to a cult by the time they reach adulthood.'

Roxy gave him a look like she'd just opened the fridge and found it entirely covered in old rotting food. 'sounds like a good place for a family,' she said tersely.

'Well i'd argue that we're relatively well adjusted, right Al?' Dick responded.

'oh yeah. just a couple of average guys,' Tim said sarcastically. 'mentally well and all that.'

'do i hear the wing of the night flapping at my window?' Conner bellowed from inside the fireplace hideaway seconds before he appeared dressed in one of the dark purple cult robes, holding an aspergillum by its chain in one hand, and that big old bible in the other.

Dick took one look at him and burst into laughter. 

Tim frowned. 'Conner take that off,' he said softly, but firmly, voice near a hiss.

Kon stopped a moment, looking at Tim nervously and then threw the robe off with his TTK. it didn't show on his face that his ego was damaged by that, but Tim could see it in the slower kick of his feet as he floated across the room to them.

'hey Dickie bird long time no see,' he said in greeting as he touched down in front of Nightwing and pulled him into a hug.

Dick returned the hug whole heartedly 'missed you too, Kon. how's family life?' he asked, pulling away.

Conner's face lit up in a strange way and he turned his beaming expression on Tim. 'oh you know,' he said, flippantly, 'it's goin.'

Tim did his best to stay properly schooled under the attention but with a two pairs of overly attentive eyes on him it was clear he'd been read. Roxy didn't seem to notice though. much to his relief.

Rex came trundling out of the annex behind Superboy, picking up the robe as he came and draping it clumsily over his arm.

'who's'a friend?' the little man asked, as he cautiously approached.

'Rex,' Kon said with a bit too much enthusiasm, 'this is Dick, he's kinda like a brother,' he paused for a second, considering. Nightwing carefully, 'in law?' 

Dick sloppily hid his giggling behind a hand. 'it's a little complicated considering how close a couple of our father figures are, he explained, 'kind of ends up being one big family when you do Christmas with the Kents.'

'who're the Kents?' Rex asked suspiciously.

'family friends,' Dick said. 'Conner's related.'

Roxy crossed her arms over her chest. 'sounds like a complicated relation. who's secret identity are we knocking on right about now?'

Dick laughed her off gracefully by opening a nearby box, as he said, 'well i wouldn't know anything abo- hey look it's one of those old photo albums! man i used to love these when i was a kid.' he straightened, holding up a large wooden book with a glass photo top cover.

Tim opened his mouth to protest, but Conner was already helping Nightwing open the album. 

'oh look at all the baby pictures of baby bird,' Dick cooed.

'man it's always a trip to me how soft babies look,' Conner said.

Roxy made and effort to peek over his shoulder but Dick closed to book with a snap and a puff of dust. 'what were you thinking about doing with all this stuff, Al?' he asked.

'burning it,' Tim deadpanned.

Rex made a thoughtful noise next to him. 'y'know i was thinking about prices and worth and all that looking through this stuff but now i think i'd agree. this is some bad juju in this house,' he said.

'awe, that's just Gotham,' Dick twittered. 

Tim shifted nervously on the hard wood floors. 'it's not like there's anything here we can't replace,' he said. 'i guess i'd like to keep the books, but we can even toss out the furniture. i was thinking we could pile it in the big driveway so it'll be less hazardous than doing it in the lawn.'

'cool,' Dick agreed. 'i'll organize things up so Kon can move it in loads out front. mind if we toss things that fit out windows for time efficiency?'

'go nuts,' Tim said.

by six o'clock they'd cleared about ten rooms. Dick and Kon spent most of that time gleefully destroying furniture by chucking it out windows.

when the sun was down they gathered up every last scrap of wood and fabric they could find and Superboy lit it up with a glance.

'man wish i'd brought some marshmallows and weenies,' Dick said as Roxy lit her cigarette on the quickly growing bonfire.

'i could run out and get some real quick,' Kon suggested. 'i think we're all a little hungry.

'not me i got smokes,' Roxy said.

Conner flicked a wrist at her and bounced off with a last word that he'd get the good meat.

Dick snickered like a twelve year old.

'So what's all this Conner stuff?' she asked when he was out of eyesight.

'every boy needs a normal life,' Dick said, warming his hands by stretching them out toward the flame.

'hmph not that he'd tell us about that,' she muttered.

dick smiled at her ruefully. 'it's complicated behind the leather and spandex,' he explained. 'just like real life you know? everything ends up connected to something else. part of a bigger picture. most people keep secrets not for themselves but the people around them. it's something that can be hard to understand and take a little while to overcome. but if you stick around slowly you'll meet the people you need to meet and they can decide for themselves if it's okay for you to know everything.'

'check out mister wise guy,' she said to her father. 

Tim shot her a harsh look.

'okay,' she said, 'i'm just sore because S.B. used to tell me everything. now he's got some fancy civvie name and i don't even know it. just shows how easy it is for a family to fall apart.'

'yeah,' Dick agreed.

Tim kept all comment to himself.

it was about five minutes before Kon came back with food and supplies. a paper bag and some sodo pop in a pack.

'no one saw you flying around right?' Tim asked as Conner handed him a package of sausages that were obviously butcher fresh.

'i popped by a little place i know in Kansas,' he said. 'probably most of the town saw me but they're used to it.'

Tim finally let him have a small smile because he was sure no one was looking. 'get down here,' he said.

Kon's boots met the driveway with a soft click. 

Tim could smell the meat he'd brought them through it's paper wrappings. he must have picked up a little over a pound, but it didn't seem to bother the kryptonian's nose despite his extreme sensitivity. 

fingertips lightly met Tim's hip, followed by the palm they were attached to. it wasn't exactly romantic, both of them holding dead animal parts with family potentially watching, but Conner had the grace to hold up his acquisitions as a blinder before he leaned in to steal a kiss.

and it felt normal in a way that seemed wrong, but Tim didn't want to fight it.


	4. Future Reservations

Three more weeks to get the whole house cleaned up. A labor of extensive annoyance. Tim could vaguely stand Roxy most times, despite what her presence represented. But Rex was a complete breach of all proper etiquette and conduct. Despite what he'd said about 'bad juju' their first day working together Tim had caught him trying to steal things at least twelve times. It was a good thing Roxy was always ready and waiting to hit her father with a rolled up newspaper or cloth because Tim would have done him a lot worse. 

Now they had a big, entirely empty house, with an impressive amount of ash blowing all over the place in the front yard.

Tim stood on the front steps of the house, looking out over all the destruction he'd okayed, and wondered if the outdoor clean up would really be worth his 'quick fix'. 

'It's fine,' Conner told him, leaning on against one of the supports that framed the entryway. 'I got real good at shoveling snow out on the farm.'

'You lived on a farm S.B.?' Roxy asked, all incredulity.

'Only long enough for them to finish the pin up shoot,' Kon joked.

'Try a year and a half if you ignore your dead spell,' Tim corrected.

Conner rolled his eyes. 'Our family's fearless leader,' he said as if Tim was a museum display. 'Always takin' the tar outta me infront of those i hold most dear.'

Roxy snickered, and slapped him on the shoulder with the hand she was holding her cigarette in, sending more ash flying all over the place. 'Oh you shit,' she said, affectionately.

'I'm a shit?' Kon asked, "what about Rex? he's even shaped like a turd.'

Tim tried to play off chuckling along with Roxy's loud, crowing laugh.

'Oh,' Conner said then, breaking through the amusement, and pointing at Tim. 'There it is he's smiling.'

Roxy snickered.

Tim instantly dropped his face into a frown. 'Conner stop it.'

Roxy giggled.

Conner waved a hand at him with all the nonchalance of a college frat boy who's financial advisor was telling him his trust fund had just run out. 'See he loves that I'm funny but he'd never admit it,' he explained to Roxy.

Roxy snickered again.

Tim pulled his retracted staff out of his back pocket and expanded it into Conner's stomach.

Roxy broke out into full on gales of laughter again, clutching her stomach and choking on her cigarette smoke.

'Shit," Kon hissed, also doubled over and clutching his stomach. Which was ridiculous because there was no way in hell it had hurt that badly. Emotional wounds hit Conner deep though.

'Looks like you deserved it!' Roxy said through continued laughter. 'Youre like my stupid cousin. The one from the desert you met. Always poking the cat and getting surprised when it fucks your guts out.'

And because Superboy never could keep his mouth shut he opened the stupid thing to say, 'Honestly, Roxy, Usually I'm the one who's-' 

Tim brought the staff down on his head with all the strength he could muster out of stance.

Conner, luckily, was smart enough to shut his mouth.

'Go clean the yard,' Tim hissed.

'Yessir,' Conner said quickly, and went to get the shovel.

'God. He has such a type,' Roxy said, still giggling a bit.

'What do you mean?' Tim asked.

'Dark hair, kinda cold and emotionally unavailable, independent, y'know. Only lets him think he's boss as long as he's not being stupid, then tugs on his leash hard and shouts 'Heel Boy!'' she explained.

Tim made a thoughtful sound in his throat, and turned to watch Kon quikly shoveling through the ash in the yard. It was.-

Kinda funny. To think of himself as being typical of Superboy's tastes or even an obvious choice in partner for someone like that. He'd always felt like-

A kid sitting at home, writing some kind of self insert fanfiction. And then one day Superboy came along and-

Flirted with him.

And the safe little bubble of dissociation tumbled down.

That scene from labyrinth with the girl in the big fluffy dress and the Goblin King dancing. Only Tim was the girl or something and Conner was the Goblin King.

That was an uncomfortable thought.

Conner was sometimes an-

uncomfortable person.

He was so open, and real, and he hated lying and double talk even though he was good at both. And he could see through Tim like no one else. Not even Dick. He could see the Robin underneath the boy, and vice versa. Tim didn't like being known so completely. It was not comfortable to be understood. It was nice though, and oh so convenient. But sometimes Tim felt like Conner could see into his head. Like he had a million eyes and knew everything.

There were people who made comparisons in the world.

Between Kryptonians.

And angels.

In Tim's father's native tradition, that would make Conner a shade.

But then again this was Conner. The most shameless and uncaring person in the world. Sexually available, emotionally frank, deeply loyal , and up until he'd-

died, Tim had just assumed it was because he was a clone so he didn't really have a soul like everyone else did. Didn't know right from wrong. But once he'd seen him dead and mangled, Tim had just. Known.

Conner was real. He was alive. A real life. A full individual. One with a soul. A soul that felt things. One that would be naturally attracted to him as the person he was even regardless of his identity as Robin. Even if he'd never been extraordinary at all.

Conner shoveled the yard.

There was nothing extraordinary about that.

'Where's you father?' Tim asked Roxy.

'Oh him?' She simpered. 'He went into town saying he wanted to-" She took a drag on her cigarette. 'Drum up some business so he doesn't have to rely on you dollar like some kinda bum.'

Tim had nothing to say to that. 

'Don't worry he'll probably fall flat on his ass like he always does.'

'Hey gang,' Dick said, leaning out the front door. 'I'm ordering Chi- Oh you got the yard cleaned up.'

Tim looked over his shoulder to see Kon standing there, one arm braced on the shovel in a spotless yard. 'Good job!' he said softly, and Kon gave him a winded, two finger salute.

'Hey Kon want Chinese?' Dick called.

'Boy fuck do I?' Conner hollered back.

Maybe there were ways Conner Kent could make even yard shoveling extraordinary. 

Maybe Tim was simply extraordinary now by association. 

Delivery took longer than Tim would have liked, but food was good. Kon got him to try some of his tea which was worth stepping out of his comfort zone for honestly, but Tim had to wonder how he could drink something so sweet when he already had so much sugar naturally existing in his body. Of course he did somehow also enjoy Soda so it shouldn't have been that odd. At some point during the meal Conner's hand ended up on Tim's hip opposite where he was sitting, cradling Tim's back like a chair rest when they'd already burned all the chairs. No one said anything. No one even cast them a second glance or seemed to notice or pointed it out. Tentatively, Tim let it happen.

'What's our next course of action?' Dick asked between bites of chicken and rice. Sure as ever to meet Alfred's standard in manners.

Tim thought for a moment 'Ordering furniture and appliances to replace what we got rid of, krypto-baby proofing the house, picking a room for the nursery and rigging it with red sunlamps so the don't kill me. That's what we need from you, Dick. Roxy, you and your father should find employment, or some sort of occupation to fill your time. You don't need an income but you do need to contribute.' Roxy shrugged understandingly. 'Kon and I need to make another trip to San Fran to check up on everything again. When we get back, we'll help Dick out.'

'Sounds solid,' Dick said. 'Got any idea for what kinda aesthetic you want in here or should I just go nuts? Maybe I could check to see if Bruce has any old stuff lying around in storage, some cool vintage shit?'

'I really don't care as long as a baby can't brain itself on anything,' Tim said.

'I don't know if that's something you really gotta worry about, bud. I don't know if the kids'll stay squishy long like normal babies,' Conner said.

'Plan for every contingency,' Tim advised him. 

He felt Conner shrug.

San Francisco felt a lot different that Gotham. Not the same kind of cold. Tim didn't waste any time getting them where they needed to be. He wanted to be there and back again as quickly as possible. Checking on a couple of twitchy little flesh wads that didn't really do anything wasn't really his idea of a good time. Conner on the other hand was ecstatic to see his sons. he'd been happy to spend extra time repairing Tim's lab for that reason too. Because he had some paternal drive to be close to his unborn children. Tim didn't really get it.

Kon spent his time cooing at the tanks while Tim ran diagnostics and refilled nutrient supplies. Everything in proper order. 

'Are you ready to go yet?' he asked when he'd finished with everything.

'Do we gotta?' Kon asked.

'We really should. I'd like to get h-'

'Can we take them with us?'

'Conner,' Tim said in a long suffering tone. 

'Yeah I know it's stupid. It's just. i don't know. I never thought I'd be able to- It was just never a possibility with anyone I dated you know? Didn't matter what parts we were talking. Even if someone had been my own Species I've just got dud goop. And beyond that who'd wanna have a life like that with,' he paused for a while. 'me?'

Tim watched him quietly. He didn't know what to say. He didn't even know Conner had thought all this. He sort of had a habit of assuming the clone was shallow. No more than ankle deep. And then suddenly there Kon would be surprising him by pulling out some heavy crap like that.

'Let alone you y'know? All the issues we had an- I thought you thought this was a joke because it was all there one second and not the next and no one could know about it at all and all your girlfriends and then me dating Cassie mostly to get back at you and then half way to soothe my own ego. For all the wrong reasons basically. I just thought I'm crazy y'know I thought this'll never work. I thought it was all a game you couldn't care less about and I didn't know if it was because I was a guy or because i didn't live in Gotham. But I died and you actually wanted me back enou-' he stopped talking. 'Forget about it. I'm dumb. We checked up on them, and everything's good so we should get home.'

'Yeah,' Tim said.

He never really got Conner. He never really understood him. How emotional he was. How that was what lead and drove him in life. 

Kon only needed to hold hands to fly somebody around. Tactile Telekinesis and all that. But Tim was rather rarely given that treatment. Mostly because at one point he'd derided holding hands with Conner as gay and there for a bad thing and the clone had never really gotten over it. Tim wondered a lot if maybe the slight hints of shame around Kon's edges were partially his fault. If maybe he'd inflicted this shame in particular. Instead, and to Tim's even greater embarrassment, Superboy scooped him up like some kind of Bride and carried him Lois Lane style, force field wrapped snugly around him so the wind didn't even chafe his skin. Ridiculous. What if people saw them like that?

'Three more months until we get to pop the keg on a couple of terror tots from outerspunk!' Conner informed Roxy as he breezed into the foyer of Tim's old family home where the new 'family' had set up a sort of campsite with sleeping bags, a cooler and a space heater.

He set Tim down gently on his feet and then floated himself into a proper upright position before touching down himself. Tim felt suddenly awkward to be standing infront of a couple of civvies in full uniform but neither Rex or Roxy seemed to notice. Both of them were busy trying to get a hotplate to work with the hookups for the generator Dick had brought over.

'Sounds nice,' Roxy said, clearly not listening. Tim watched Kon put his hands up in exasperation. 'Hey when are ya gonna get the electricity rigged up in this joint?' she asked then.

'We should be getting a proper hook up in a few days. They said they needed to send someone out to rehook us into the grid. Until then we suffer,' Tim explained.

'Don't you richies usually have big old generator units as backup for the whole house and all that shit? Ain't that why ol' Dickie bird had one'a these all cazh like sittin around extra at home?' she pressed as Rex worried to himself over the hotplate, and a package of slowly fouling steak Conner had brought them from his 'meat hookup'.

'This isn't B's house. My parents were civilians they were never equipped for-'

'You keep saying your parents lived here but the people who lived here were the Drakes and there was never any Alvin Drake. I looked it up in the local library,' Roxy snapped.

Tim drew a harsh breath to say something but Kon beat him to the punch.

'Oh Wow Roxy! a Cape was Lying to you about his Secret Identity! What an Absolute Unexpected turn of events!' he shouted.

Roxy glared at him. 'It's not unexpected, bozo. I knew he was lying that's why I looked it up.'

'God you're such a cop sometimes I don't know what to do with you,' Kon said.

'Roxy,' Tim cut in, calm as anything. 'I would appreciate if you would allow me to have my privacy.'

She looked at him, almost bashful, not nearly abashed enough. 

'Why ya gotta lie to me huh? If we're gonna be family, if you're comin into the Kid's life and all that?' she asked.

'I don't know what family means where you come from but I wouldn't trust my own blood if they hadn't proven themselves to me,' Tim hissed.

Then the walked right past her up the stairs to his old bedroom and slammed the door.

Outside he could hear them yelling, but he laid down in the corner, pulled his cape around himself and fell asleep rather than bother listening.

When he woke up, Conner was crouching in front of him. 'Hey,' he said softly. 'At least tell me if you're gonna sleep.'

'Why?' Tim asked.

'Because I wanna sleep with you,' Conner explained. 'Here I brought a coupla sleeping bags I zipped together and some blankets. Lets get you outta that.'

'Outta what?' Tim said, but Kon's TTK was already making quick work of the safety guards on his uniform. Disengaging hooks and ties, slipping Tim's Tunic back over his shoulders and his cowl off his head.

When he was completely naked Kon slid him into the little nest of bag and blankets he'd made up, stripped, and climbed in next to him so they were pressed skin to skin. The last thing Tim remembered was a kiss landing lightly on his hairline.

Waking up in the wrong place in his old room was a mistake, but it was one made slightly better by the steaming mug of coffee next to him. Light sugar. Hard cream. exactly the way he liked it. He found a note stuck to the bottom of it by condensation. All that was on it was a drawing of a plate of squiggles he assumed were art short hand for eggs. He never really had understood art very well but he did have enough of an understanding of Conner to know that probably meant breakfast was waiting downstairs.

That was about when he realized he was completely naked. Which was unusual. Ever in situations where he spent the night with Conner and they-

He stopped his thought process right there, trying to reorganize his mind so he didn't spiral off the deep end first thing in the morning. Somehow being close to Superboy was harder with family around. And especially here. Not that it had ever been easy and not panic educing once the high of how good it felt wore off. Shame pooled down in the cradle of his pelvis just thinking about it. But no. That hadn't happened last night. He would remember if it had.

He took a sip of coffee to steady his nerves. 

Kon was one of those people, probably the only one Tim had ever Known, that staunchly refused to touch someone without permission. Like one of those really big, really friendly dogs that knows people are afraid of it.

There was a set of clothes nicely folded at the foot of his 'bed' he noticed then. Nice, simple. The exact kind of color matching you could expect from a Kryptonian eye. Absolutely garish. He smiled at them. Superboy was probably the best guy Tim had ever spent time with. Which was exactly the problem most of the time, but right at that moment it felt-

Good?

He put the clothes on. Even if they were a bit ridiculous. 

Conner and the Leeches were downstairs with breakfast. They'd made themselves some chairs out of a few surviving throw pillows and the blankets they'd slept on, and were chatting amicably enough for people who had shouted themselves hoarse at each other just the night before. 

'Hey,' Roxy said, when she saw him. 'I'm-' she paused, cast her eyes down, 'sorry about bein' a jerk last night. I won't do nothin like that again,' she promised.

'Mm,' Tim said, and sat down next to Conner. 

Kon handed him a plate with scrambled eggs, jelly toast and burnt bacon. It was stupid how much little gestures like this were starting to mean. No one, not even Alfred, was willing to burn bacon for him. But Superboy would.

'You want I should keep callin' you Alvin?" Roxy asked.

'Forget it,' Tim said, tucking into his food. He didn't really feel comfortable being apologized to like that. It wasn't something that usually happened in his life.

'Can I call you Tim then?' she asked.

'I guess,' Tim told her, very focused on his bacon.

'How's your coffee?' Kon asked.

'Mm,' Tim said.

He could feel Conner shaking his head through the ripples of the field that had wrapped around him the second he was close enough. 'Mornings,' he said to Roxy.

'It's almost 4 in the afternoon,' Roxy said. 'You just made us all breakfast again like we ain't just ate it.'

'It's bat morning,' Conner explained. 'Gotta learn this kinda stuff in Bat Country.'

'Mm,' Tim said.

'Rex gets like that too, yeah?' Kon teased.

'He does,' Roxy agreed, pushing her tone for maximum mocking effect.

'Don't you two shit kids gang up on me. Don't fall into the tempting trap of elder abuse. I'm still a real person even if I can't speak English until I've had coffee and I'm slowly becoming lame and incontinent,' Rex Joked.

Tim gave him a half hearted chuckle. He could dig self deprecation. That was something he understood.

Breakfast continued with growing clarity as Tim slowly chugged his way through his coffee, half listening to Conner complain about how coffee dependent he'd been in his days at Cadmus because he was underground so mornings were hell.

Dick called him just as he put down his plate.

Tim didn't hear much other than 'Bruce' and 'Alive'. He felt his blood run cold.

There was no way in hell they were going to be able to hide any of this from him.


	5. Fatherly Disappointment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure why but updating isn't bumping me to the top of the list when searched for most recently updated. if you enjoy this story, please consider recommending it.

The rush of Bruce's return sort of threw a wrench in plans. Everything was a lot more complicated. He had a lot of questions about errant orders for home goods on his credit cards, and a lot of built up frustration from not being able to patrol his Gotham the way he wanted. Tim tried his best just to keep up. At some point, he kept telling himself. It would be time to be honest. But that point wasn't now. 

Bruce could tell Clark.

The two of them were close. It was a gamble.

Tim could feel it in Kon's response to the whole situation. He'd never seen Superboy lay so low. The Leeches were the only ones who seemed to go out anymore. The Leeches and Red Robin.

Bruce didn't seem to think working with Damian was a good idea. He left the job of handling the boy to Dick.

Dick had always been a good handler. He'd helped Alfred retrain Ace into a semi normal dog.

No Bruce wanted Tim by his side and Tim was just as ecstatic about it as it hurt somewhere deep inside to fight next to Bruce without being Robin.

It wasn't long until B noticed that Robin had moved back into the old nest though. Maybe a week and a half but only because he'd been busy. It wasn't hard to follow the money trail of orders purchased and delivered to the old Drake residence.

To their luck, or massive disbenefit Tim didn't know, Roxy opened the door.

'Fuck are you, Handsome Darkman McTurtleneck?' she asked.

Tim, standing on the second floor, clutching the banister as he watched this, felt all the blood drain from his limbs in preparation for massive physical trauma. 

Bruce chuckled in a bemused, awestruck sort of way. 'I'm Bruce, I live next door,' he said.

'Gay name,' Roxy judged. 'did you come to bring welcome cookies?'

Bruce's lips rolled together into a straight line and then back again. 'Actually i was wondering if i could speak to Tim.'

'I don't know no Tim,' Roxy insisted.

'He's standing right behind you,' Bruce pointed out.

'Shit!' Roxy said.

She looked back at him, and it was obvious from the expression on her face that his profound horror and mortification were more than apparent. She whipped her head back around to Bruce. 'I don't think he wants t-'

'Wait!' Tim shouted, feet suddenly moving faster than he could think to get him down the stairs. 'Bruce I can explain,' he insisted as he slid to a halt on his sock feet right in front of the door jam.

'Tim it's your house. Who's this though?' he asked.

'I'm Roxy.'

'I think you should go,' Conner's voice cut in.

Bruce's demeanor changed in an instant. His posture seemed to solidify somehow. Like something had taken hold of him. Like he did when he was suddenly Batman again.

Roxy's eyes narrowed harshly.

'Superboy," Batman said, turning to face him. 'And I take it this is Roxy Leech. Daughter of Con artist Rex Leech. Your ex agent. Who's been spotted in town quite regularly as of late.'

'The one and only,' Conner bit.

'I didn't realize you were in town,' Batman said.

'Maybe you shoulda before you walked onto my property.'

Bruce suddenly held his hands up. 'Hold on now. I'm not looking for a fight,' he said in his press voice. 'I only had a few questions for my son.'

Roxy stepped back from the door suddenly.

'What are you gonna do with the answers?' Conner asked.

'Whatever I-"

'Bruce, Please,' Tim begged. 'Just promise to keep this in the family.'

The family was B's language. 'How's Su-" he started, but Tim put a hand on one of his forearms and fixed him with a wide eyed, pleading look. 

'Please. There's only family here.'

Batman's shoulders fell completely. 'Can I Come in?' he asked.

They all ended up gathered in the Library because Tim had been half joking when he suggested putting the nursery in the hideaway behind the fireplace but he wasn't really joking entirely. It was a windowless room on the ground floor with very little sun penetration that couldn't be easily found by intruders. Kon had already spent time putting all the furniture together, and painting the walls with a sky scene.

'Did something happen while I was away?' Bruce asked, after he'd been directed to take a seat on one of the new couches.

'Not really- I mean, Conner came back- but this all happened while he was gone it just- things just started moving along now. I don't know what to say.'

The room was a bit confusing suddenly. Everything seemed backwards when he tried to tell his body what to do. This was just like that night on the roof with Dick when they'd tried talking about it. 

'Roxy can you go get us some lemonade?' Kon asked.

'What? oh sure.' she said, realizing something weird and emotional was probably about to happen that she didn't want to be there for and he was saving everyone's hides

'I'm sorry,' Tim said hurriedly under his breath.

'Tim what are you sorry for?' Batman asked in that overly patient tone he used sometimes with children on cases.

'If i may,' Kon cut in. 'I think it'd be simpler for me to tell you what's up.'

B turned his full attention on the clone.

'He missed me. Some stuff happened while i was dead and he ended up,' Conner paused, thinking for the right wording. 'Cloning me. The fetuses are too late in term to, uh, flush now, for lack of better words. so, um.'

'So you're playing house," Bruce said.

Conner blanched. 

Tim put his hands over his ears and brought his knees up to his chest.

'Look I'm gonna have to ask you to leave, and if you don't I'll throw you the fuck out,' Conner said.

Batman fixed him with a hard glare, turned his head away, closed his eyes, opened them again. Bruce turned back to Tim much more calmly after that. 'That was harsh,' he said.

Tim took his hands away from his ears and wrapped his arms around his legs.

'This is probably the most responsible thing either of you could do in the situation. It's just a bit,' he took a deep breath and sighed, 'shocking to say the least, both of you are so young. You especially Conner. And I wouldn't even know what to do with,' he trailed off, tutting in a way that now could only remind Tim of Damian.

'You're mad,' Tim said.

Batman looked at him with hard set eyes. 'No, Tim, I'm worried,' he said in that deeper harder voice that stood in for modulation when he wasn't wearing the cowl.

They were like two different people in one body sometimes. Most capes were. But B especially was-

Split. Right down the middle. Almost like Two Face.

'Don't tell Clark,' Tim pleaded.

'Why?' he asked.

'Because- I- Just please don't.'

Bruce gave him a softer, gentler look then, and leaned across the coffee table between them to lay a hand on Tim's shoulder. Robin relaxed instantly under Batman's touch. Superboy looked at everything but them.

'Next time just tell me when you're getting what you want,' he said.

The tears came suddenly and inexplicably. Just like the Vomit. Tim had no idea why. Just like the vomit. Floodgate rules: once it start it don't stop.

He felt Kon go rigid by the static in the air next to him as Bruce leaned in and wrapped Tim in a hug.

'It's okay,' Batman said against the shell of his ear. 'It's alright to be happy. I'm not mad at you.'

The tears just came harder.

By the time Conner managed to usher Bruce out, Tim wasn't sure he was real anymore. The rest of the day passed in a strange haze. Conner trying to be comforting. Roxy bringing him a cup of coffee. Rex getting home and regaling them all with some amazing news Tim didn't process at all. The poor ass was completely waylaid by his blank condition too, and needed Roxy to sweep him out of the room for some sort of explanation.

Dick showed up at some point during all this with Alfred behind him carrying an entire china tea service like he'd just equipped it from an item slot.

It all seemed very odd and unreal. A few more pieces of large furniture were delivered and Tim sat in the library on the first floor, watching Conner build a bed.

'How ya holding up?' Dick asked, seeming to suddenly appear on the couch beside him.

'Mm,' Tim said.

'It's gonna be alright, y'know. This isn't really gonna change anything.'

Dick's face looked honest, and open, but it was hard to take the comfort from him considering recent events. Tim didn't know if he'd ever get over Damian. It almost made him miss Jason when Dick was around and all the two of them ever did together was take horrible, nasty feelings out on one another, and then sulk about how guilty it made them. 

Tim turned his attention back to Conner. 'Mm,' he said.

'Tim, do you really think Bruce of all people would judge you for wanting to be happy with someone you care about?' Dick asked.

Tim didn't know what to say to that. 

'This is Bruce, Tim. All he's ever wanted was his standards met and your happiness. And sometimes those two things can be contradictory but that doesn't mean he doesn't love you, Tim. You mean the world to him,' Dick explained.

Tim took a sip of his tea and said nothing.

This probably, really, wasn't even about Bruce. Tim didn't even know how he felt about Bruce half the time. He didn't know how to see Bruce, what to think of the man. He was two men. Different men with different needs. Maybe even three men if you counted the places where those two distinct entities met and intertwined. Tim remembered Bruce or Batman or B a long time ago in the cave, back lit by all the monitors, saying, 'Of course my companionship is temporary. There's no marriage like giving your body to something,' and Tim remembered the tone he'd said it in had been a toneless tone. Like he was listening to a man speak who had no voice. A man who had never spoken before in his life. Or maybe a man who was speaking on the surface of something so raw and real and unfathomably large that he could not handle even the barest expression of it's reality.

But Bruce was his father in a way. The man he'd always wished was his father in childhood. Bruce was like conner. Always watching with all seeing eyes. Presiding over his life and intervening only when most needed. Swooping in like some kind of guardian angel. How many times had Bruce stood in the way of Tim, his parents, and their disagreements? How many times had Tim listened to him come down on his mother from behind closed doors for unfair punishments in ways his blood father never had?

Somewhere deep down he knew Bruce cared. But why? His investment made no sense. His constant ebbing and flowing in and out of Tim's world made no sense. Bruce made no sense. Two or three people, a million and one contradictions. A father. A mentor. A dependent. A partner who expected his mind body and soul on the line for the cause at any given moment.

But Bruce had known Tim always intended to retire once his use had run out. Once he couldn't be Robin anymore and-

And now Tim wasn't Robin. This was his Game Over condition. This was his Quit Screen, and he was hovering over the option to set down the controller, the keyboard, the pen, whenever it was most convenient and end this whole ridiculous self entanglement.

Bruce Knew.

Probably better than anyone he knew.

But Tim could still feel the disappointment under Bruce's skin when they'd been close. You don't fight by a man's side from age 13 to 16 and not feel that. Three years of his life. Something he'd felt so dedicated to. It wasn't a phase or a fad it had meant the world. Bruce had meant the world. Batman and Robin had meant the world.

But it was over now.

Was he even family anymore?

Could he ever be Bruce's partner again?

Was he stuck on the outskirts now like Dick and Jason, wailing to be let back into Bruce's care, and grace?

Dick was wrong. Everything would be different.

There was no going back.

Just like Tim had never expected to see Kon's face again and face that reckoning. He never could have foreseen this judgment day and he never could have prepared for it. This was his tower. This was the thing that ended his life. Not a simple spiritual change. Not an awakening. The brutal, and violent end to an entire way of existence.

Dick understood. Dick knew.

Probably better than anyone. He knew.

But in knowing he was so lost in his own pain of being locked out of his God's garden that all the comfort he could offer was denial.

Could anyone live up to Bruce as a partner? Could even Conner manage?

Clearly no one could manage to patch that gap in Dick or Jason's lives. True they'd been even closer to Batman. They'd known him even better. Before he'd been so much more hardened and closed by further loss. He'd never recovered from Jason. Tim had never really gotten in, and still. Still he didn't know if even this boy, the nicest boy he'd ever given time to, could make up for the hole B would leave in his life as he walked out of it in a way that would mean they never stood side by side the same again.

It was worse than seeing Bruce dead. It was a worse loss than just loosing him.

To half loose him. For him to still be there. Within arm's reach. But suddenly and forever cold.

Dick knew.

Probably better than anyone, he knew.

He knew crying couldn't help. Fucking couldn't help. All the drugs in the world probably couldn't help.

He slipped an arm around Tim's shoulders. 'It'll be fine,' he said. 'Nothing will change,' he lied.

Tim didn't respond at all.

Conner set up the bed, and rolled out a carpet. Hung up new curtain rods and curtains. Floated around the room, languidly, attending to the productivity of making it a nice, book walled studio apartment. Eventually Dick left. Alfred left. Rex and Roxy retired to the rooms they'd chosen for themselves. 

Tim, sat in the same spot he'd been in since Bruce came, and did nothing. He watched Conner slide a mattress onto their new bed frame passively. Watched him tuck, freshly bought and washed linens onto it. Hummed in understanding when Conner asked him if he was tired, but didn't move to get up. Didn't even think to.

Conner flashed him a sad smile, and crossed the room to scoop him off the couch. 'Got any jams you wanna slam on?' he asked, mouth against the top of Tim' head.

Tim shook it 'no'.

'Kay, well I'm gonna get you outta these dirty clothes and put you to sleep,' he explained.

Tim shook his head 'yes', and Conner tucked him into the sheets.

'You know,' he said, dim lit by the setting sun creeping in through the tall windows. 'I'm never gonna get between you and family right?'

Tim looked at him, and didn't know what he even thought about that.

'You know I,' A pause. Conner looked away over his shoulder so his face was hidden by the angle of Tim's position. 'Love you, right?'

'Mm,' Tim said, feeling like that was all he'd sad that day.

'You know I'd,' another soft pause, 'Never want anything other than what was best for you, right?'

'Mm,' Tim said.

'You know i'd never give up the cape right?'

'Mm.'

'Well i know that's why you're all fucked up right now Tim, but listen. We have other people in our lives. Civilians, other capes, back up, so that we're not alone. So if anything happened to you, or me- there would be someone there for the kids they trusted, and loved, and knew they could rely on,' Conner explained.

Tim looked at him for a long while. 'So it's not just because I could never be their m-' he stopped, hid his face under the blanket.

'Tim?' Kon asked.

'It's not just that I can't,' Tim started again, choking. 'Be their real mother,' he finished quickly in a whirl of regret.

Conner laughed. 'What?' he asked.

Tim buried himself in the blankets in further mortification.

'Oh babe, no,' he cooed. 'Did I embarrass you?'

Tim pressed the blankets against his face harder.

'Are you embarrassed because I laughed?'

Tim shook his head, 'no'.

'Are you embarrassed because i know how you feel?'

Tim shook his head, 'yes'.

'Oh, babe,' Conner crooned. 'I'm not laughing at you. And it's okay, you know. I wish you told me you thought that. Roxy's like my sister, Tim she's like an aunt. And I only thought it'd be a good idea to ask Kara for help because her entire Job on Krypton was raising babies. She raised Clark for a little while even.'

'Oh.' Tim said into the blankets.

'Oh, buddy you're fine. It's fine. You're their parent, man. No one wants to challenge that.'

'Oh,' Tim said again.

Conner leaned down and pressed a kiss to his head where it was visible. 'You tired?'

'Mm,' Tim said.

'Let's get to bed then,' Kon told him, and turned out the lights without moving to do so.


	6. Altered State

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> next chapter should be up Wednesday if you're following this.

Tim didn't get out of bed in the morning. Kon woke up, went through the whole song and dance, brought him coffee and breakfast, but he didn't have the energy to eat or drink it. He knew it'd just be another argument but he just couldn't handle the idea of doing anything. Even rolling over so he didn't have to stare his ineptitude in the face was a monumental task.

The argument didn't come though. Instead he ended up slowly drifting back off to sleep.

He woke up to Alfred standing at the foot of his bed.

'Well,' he said, importantly, ' Good morning to you, Timothy. I was sent to watch you and make sure you were fed when you woke.'

'By who?' Tim asked groggily.

'Master Dick, sir,' Alfred informed him. 'I've brought left overs from Master Bruce's breakfast- I do trust you don't mind the impertinence. I simply haven't the time to make a whole new set of courses for you. I've kept it on a hot plat though, and it should be warm.'

'I don't know if I can eat,' Tim told him.

'Yes, the boy did say something about that when he came round this morning to fetch master Dick. No matter. I shall just have to tie you down and spoon it into your mouth if you insist on resisting me. You must remember I am the man who's kept Master Bruce up to weight most of his dreary, and regrettably unintelligible life,' Alfred said unwaveringly.

Tim gave up and let himself be spoon fed like a child, complete with the polite passive aggressive mockery Alfred so enjoyed.

'Where did Kon go?' he asked after suffering through an entire bowl of cream of wheat.

'He didn't say. Mentioned he should be back by nightfall though, which is just about now if I'm honest. Really now you and Master Bruce are so incouragable aren't you? partying late into the night and then sleeping the day away.'

'We don't par-' Alfred smacked the spoon to his lips gently.

'All of you, the whole lot, does certainly go out on the town every night and have an awful lot of fun,' he chastised.

Tim knew well enough to keep his mouth shut. 

Alfred and Mrs. Mac, being a few of the last remaining members of the British serving class that had come from generations of serving staff back hundreds of years, had a few familiar mannerisms between the two of them. Tim knew when he was being told, in that gentle, but firm way, to mind himself and do it well.

'The word I got was that you'd fallen into a funk, Master Timothy,' Alfred said then, sliding the spoon back into the bowl and placing it on the cart he'd brought in. Next he took the dome off another tray and pulled out a plate of talapia in a thin white sauce with a side of bread.

Tim whined.

'Open wide,' Alfred said, picking a fork up and twisting a bit of fish off.

Tim did the same way a child would open his mouth at the dentist knowing they were about to shoot his gums full of Novocaine

'Hey party people what's happening?' Conner demanded as he burst through the library's double doors.

Alfred, clever as he was, used the moment of distraction to shove the fish into Tim's mouth, and turn to Superboy with a triumphant little smirk 'Welcome home, sir,' he said.

'Good to see you too Al, but step aside I brought my finance a bouquet all the way from shining Southern California! And I've never met a louder flower! It's Like Trumpets!'

As if on cue Dick burst through the doors after him, holding a massive bag full of what could only be weed.

'Hi Alfred,' he chirped, completely unafaird of any blow back for this.

'Master Dick, Good to have you home,' Alfred said in a long suffering tone.

'Want me to roll you a blunt?' Dick pressed.

'No thank you. I've things to tend to back home I'm afraid. A Large Bat Bottom to diaper and all that. Do try to have a good time without me though, won't you?' he said, standing to leave. Dick and Conner made a hole for him to push the serving cart through, and watched him out the doors.

'Yikes,' Kon said when he'd closed the door behind him. 'Do I really have to drink his bottled judgment every day for the rest of my life if I marry you?'

'You get used to it,' Dick assured him.

Tim stared at them blankly a moment. 'What are you doing?'

'Trying to lighten the mood around here,' Conner explained. 'You've been so stressed.'

'And sober,' Dick added.

Kon held out an indicating hand as if to elevate the point.

'I know I asked you to kick the performance enhancers for the whole kid thing, but I've never said there was anything wrong with a little Mary Jane. I mean I've been around the block and back again with basically every chemical on the planet, even certain strains of kryptonite, and let me tell you what? Weed is the cheapest, easiest thing to buy that gets you slightly altered but doesn't ruin your life. Learn to settle,' Conner said, grabbing the bag in Dick's hands and holding it out in front of him 'So it looks like the volume knob on the old Drake Manor has gone from Not to Hot.'

Dick snickered at him.

'I can't believe you're going along with this,' Tim said, pointing him out. 'This is why Roy dumped you, isn't it?'

Dick opened his mouth to say something, but before he could Kon thrust the Bag of Weed in front of his face to break the Robins' line of sight.

'Without eye contact the witch cannot cast his spell and so everyone simply decides to smoke a joint and have a beer and chill down for the whole night like a bunch'a buddies without anyone calling out anyone else's failures in the game of love,' he narrated.

'I'm not smoking weed with you. I'm not thirteen,' Tim said.

'Hey, I knew you when you were thirteen and you didn't smoke weed then either,' Kon argued, 'You were popping scripts to keep up with the combined workload of School and Cape life. Not everything's Olympic diving Robin, come splash in the Kiddie pool with us.' 

'He's right, Tim. This is practically harmless. Even most addicts can manage it no problem. I do fine with it and if I thought it wouldn't work out for you I wouldn't recommend it,' Dick said.

'Oh and what are you using weed in place of?' Tim asked.

Dick leveled him with a cold look and didn't say anything. 

Not that Tim needed Dick to say anything to know his addiction. Just like he didn't need to know the specifics of the situation to know what had really ended Dick's relationship with Roy. It was what ended all his serious relationships, even the one with Kori. And it was part of what had driven a wedge between him and Bruce. Dick just never could keep it in his pants, could he? Not that he could ever admit that, this was the closets Tim had ever seen him get, and of course Roy would have found something like that weak. Not even being able to own your own flaws. Roy lived nothing but his flaws.

'Fine. Whatever. I'll smoke some,' Tim paused, considering the bag of herb nervously, 'We-eed. With you.'

Conner made an excited noise high in his throat and picked his feet off the ground to spin in a languid little circle.

Aliens.

'Wait,' he said when he'd planted his feet back on the floor firmly. 'What Roy are we talking about that dumped Dickie? Are we talking Roy Harper? As in Arsenal? Because if yeah? I have Gotta hear this.'

'God' Dick said softly, running a hand back through his hair nervously. 

'I'll grind while you talk,' Conner assured him.

'What's there to say?' Dick asked. 'Do you want me to detail my whole sordid dating history to you?'

'Yeah sure, start at square one,' conner said, sitting himself on the foot of the bed, and tearing the bag open. 

The whole room suddenly filled with the smell of earthy, dampness. Tim had caught whiffs of it on Kon a few times before, enough to know what it was, but never this strong. A couple of times, he remembered being in the Bathroom in YJ headquarters, back when Superboy was still in Hawaii hanging out with the ravers and bringing in lots of street goods, doing rails of coke off the counter with Bart as their look out, sneering at Kon when he offered a blunt to 'temper the high'.

Thinking about it, Tim had a lot of stupid memories. or, really Robin did. Robin had been a very interesting person with Tim as the pilot. Not that Dick or Jason had really made better or more stable decisions while they were in the pixie boots.

'Square one's redacted,' Dick said. 'Classified information.'

'Oh, so a Bat can't even have little convo about his sordid sex life without there being Confidentiality problems,' Kon teased.

Dick gave him a somewhat joking, but mostly warning look.

Conner flashed a winning smile back. 'What's square two then?'

Dick took a deep breath and sighed. 'A lot of high ranking Gotham Socialites I really shouldn't have been fooling around with. Ruined a couple of marriages. Then Roy.'

'Oh you two go back?' Kon asked.

Tim put his hands over his face, and leaned back against his pillows.

'Mm,' Dick agreed. 'Original Teen Titans. First person my age I ever slept with. Or well one of I guess it was sort of a threesome Donna was there.'

'What'd she do?'

'Laugh at our dicks mostly. She'd never seen one.'

'A real life Amazon laughed at your Penis,' Conner said in amazement, pulling apart buds.

'I think that's an experience we have in common,' Dick said.

Conner snickered. 'Not really laughed more like st-'

'Can we talk about literally anything else?' Tim asked.

'Alright, babe, what kind of porridge did Alfred feed you this morning?' Kon asked in a patronizing tone.

'Cream of wheat,' Tim grumbled into the comforter.

'Yea that's kinda boring. Do you wanna tell us what's eatin you up so bad you can't get outta bed?'

'No.'

'Alright then,' Ko concluded, slapping a lid onto a little metal jar he'd gotten somewhere and Twisting. 'How's about you tell us who you slept with?'

'No.'

'No?'

'Absolutely not.'

'Well, I guess considering I'm the only person here without a locked Dating history,the second girl I dated, I ever tell you about her? She was this warrior from Apokalypse but I didn't know it. Far as I knew she was just some super hot babe with nice hair who could throw me from here straight to Honolulu. Showed up outta nowhere one day and drove my skull through a parking lot. few months later she showed up at my front door with a duffle bag and told me she was moving in. Never called me by my name most times, she'd just call me 'Pup'. The sex was weird lemme tell you,. But she did teach me most of what I know,' Kon said.

'You should be careful sleeping with Mentors,' Dick warned.

'Yeah. No Shit. Didn't work out. Last I heard she broke out of prison and is screwing Vandal Savage's daughter. I hope she's happier now,' Kon said, stil turning the lid on the jar.

'After that I got back together with my Ex and she dumped me for being too flirty with girls from the future, plus also not having any damn common sense because I'm an artificially aged clone. Which was what made me fun and she dated me for being fun, but I think most couples break up for the reason they got together anyway. Like me and Knockout got together because it was Explosive but it was Too Explosive. Me and Tana dated because it was fun but then I was too Much Fun. I ended up fooling around with this doctor at Cadmus after that because I missed Tana and then Tana died and I broke it off with her because I missed Tana. And me and Cassie never woulda dated if you hadn't said it was suspicious for me to be so close to you all the time without a girlfriend, and cause you kept playing such fucking hard ball with me which all lead up to her dumping me because of what was going on between me and you,' Kon said.

'Why are you,' Tim started, and stopped, thinking hard about the words he was going to choose, 'with me then?'

Conner gave him a thoughtful look, like he was a hard math problem or unsolvable riddle. 'I like you,' he said.

'That's it?'

'You make me happy,' Kon insisted.

'I make you miserable,' Tim said.

'Gotta take the highs with the lows. Can't enjoy the spice of life without tasting the dirt.'

'That's a shitty outlook,' Tim told him.

'Wait you've only dated four people and Tim?' Dick asked.

'There were a lot of people I didn't date,' Conner said.

Dick gave him a nod as if to say that was a fair claim. 'Who's the first boy you ever fucked?' he asked.

'Oh man,' Kon said, unscrewing the jar, and scooping some of the herb inside into a small paper. 'You won't believe this. It was Batman.'

Dick gave him a cold, disbelieving stare.

'It's like one of my first memories,' Conner continued, 'So I got outta Cadmus and made it for the Big Peach. Started trying to make a name for myself and all but there was so much going on at the time, Superman dead and all, all these replacements running around trying for the glory of the old cape, and I didn't have any money or anywhere to stay so I ended up in Suicide Slum obviously, and one day I wandered into this place that said they were hiring Superman, and they took one look at me, said I was perfect. They pull out cameras, they're setting up lights. I was like Cool Beans I'm gonna be in a movie, cause I'd seen like two of those by then. So they get me a cape to go with my suit, and they bring in this Massive dude who's dressed like the Batman and they give us a run down on like the outline of the script and say 'go' and that was the first time I ever fucked a dude.'

Dick's face was blanched near to Tim's skin color as Conner laughed. 'You know that's massively illegal right?' he asked.

Kon shook his head as he pulled his tongue along the edge of the paper. 'Nah, actually. I don't legally count as a minor, or even a human, and most judicial systems don't consider me sentient even. I'm an asset of Cadmus, the government, the Superman franchise, and Lexcorp which means I'm the focal point of all out judicial warfare between a ton of really fuck-o parties. If it was considered illegal the worst they could be charged with is mishandling or damaging private property. So equivalently it was like staring in a porno with a sex doll in the eyes of the law, which is kinda fucked up. Like I guess I'd kinda rather get arrested for sale and distribution of underage porn than be considered not an individual but what do you even do with the whole I'm a clone of an alien thing. It doesn't get you very far. Few years back I was white passing enough I never got flack but didsn't matter now under the Luthor administration and only hardly matters now. Which is funny because he's where my specifically non white heritage comes from. Like I really do not get that guy,' Kon said, lighting the join he'd rolled.

Dick looked a little shaken when he took it. 'That's not the story I was expecting,' he said, words carried by smoke, and handed the joint to Tim.

Tim took it tentatively.

'Hold on, cough drop,' Kon said, suddenly before he could do anything with it. 'Put this sucker in your mouth,' he advised then, handing Tim a halls and taking the joint.

He hit it and passed it back once the cough drop was in Tim's mouth. Tim still choked a bit on the smoke.

'What was yours?' Kon asked.

'Redacted,' Dick said again.

Conner rolled his eyes. 'Forget it,' he said. 'The whole porno thing put a really weird spin on my career. it was what gave me that 'boy toy' billing they originally brought me out with. I met Rex and suddenly I had an agent getting me gigs, and adjusting my public image. I went from Gay Icon to Teen Sensation. Suddenly instead of being known in the village, and ask to attend Carnival, I was on covers like Teen Vogue. Don't know if I really appreciated the switch but it was lucrative, you know? They kinda billed me like early Timberlake. Soft, emotional, pretty, not sexually threatening. It hit big and the attention kinda went to my head. I could always go back to the clubs and stuff and have a good time but there's just something special about hordes of screaming fangirls,' he paused as the joint came around the rotation again.

'That's when I started to goof up, y'know. Like once you hit the top you gotta fall, and if you go fast one way you're gonna break the sound barrier going back, right? Man there was this Real indicative moment, y'know where Kyle Rainer pulled me aside, and said I should take this all more seriously, market myself a little better, get some endorsements. So I went and committed Libel!'

'Life's looking up now, isn't it?' Dick asked.

'Oh yeah,' Conner said, taking the joint from Tim again as Tim tried to breathe. 

Dick nonchalantly handed him a glass of water.

'Things are great now. Having a family with the Kents was nice. I don't think me and Supes'll ever be close but eh. At least I'm part of the family. And now that I died. I mean I don't know I guess I should be doing some soul searching but if you compared my relationship with Robin pre death to now, it'd be like,' he paused, considering the joint in his hand and taking another puff. 'Like trying weed and it doesn't work so every thing's all Life Time Piling Up. But then you smoke weed again and suddenly everything's Badtameez Dill,' Conner explained, handing the joint over.

Dick burst into a fit of giggles so hard he passed his turn in the rotation, forcing Tim to go again before he was ready. The smoke was even harsher that time.

'What do we do about ash?' he asked, choking out his hit.

'Don't worry about it. My full body condom is stretchy, opposable and doubles as an ash tray.' Conner assured him.

'I'm honestly kinda jealous, you know?' Dick said, casually leaning back on the bed as Conner passed him the joint. It was getting low now, near finger burning levels but Dick didn't seem perturbed.

'What'a'ya mean?' Kon asked.

'You remind me a lot of myself, you know, but better?' Dick tried.

Conner laughed at him.

'No, no, listen okay. You and me have a lot in common right?'

'Right,' Conner said taking the roach back.

'Sense of humor. Taste in dates. Fashion even sometimes.'

'Yeah,' Conner admitted.

'But when you were dating someone and they caught you sleeping around you stopped flat out.'

'Oh.'

'And how many times have I tried to make relationships work that were just- They didn't. But I don't think you'd fuck it up, man. I mean I think the two of you could really make it. Even when Tim's kicking and screaming you know how to be patient enough to get him through that. Something I could never do. So yeah. I'm kinda jealous,' Dick explained.

'Man that's fuckin' trippy, y'know because just last year I would've given basically anything to Be you, bro,' Conner admitted.

'Y'know what they say about green grass,' Dick said.

'Yeah wazzat?'

'She dyed her hair!'

Tim thought that comment was so stupid he actually managed to laugh along with them. Or maybe the weed was doing something. He didn't know. He'd never smoked weed before. It at once seemed like kid's play and like an actual street drug. Not very appealing when you've got the entire Batcave pharmacy to raid, or well to do parents who want a well behaved son enough to pay for questionable psychiatric care.

'How ya doin' Timmy?' Dick asked him then, looking up to where he was sitting at the head of the bed.

'I'm okay,' Tim said.

'Oh look at him he's toasted,' Dick cooed.

Conner laughed.

Tim laughed with them.

'I am not,' he claimed.

'You are,' Dick assured him. 'You are. You're high. I could use a little more though.'

Conner was already rolling another joint.

'Isn't that a lot?' Tim asked.

'Don't worry, honey, you're good,' Dick told him.

'I just remembered you didn't tell us about Arsenal,' Conner said then.

Dick groaned loudly. 'I don't know what I could even say about Roy.'

'Indescribable?' Conner suggested.

'No, just. Well to be honest, he's a little like Bruce.'

'How So?' Kon demanded.

'Guarded, private, secretive, does things he'd never tell anyone about, needs someone there to keep him on the straight and narrow. Family man too. He's got a daughter. I helped out with her a lot when we got back together.'

'Wait! Wait! Wait!' Conner interrupted, 'You dated more than once?'

'Oh, babe, do I ever date anyone once?' Dick asked as Conner handed him the new lit joint.

'He has a point,' Tim said.

Dick held out an indicating hand as if to elevate Tim's input.

'The entirety of the Titans was just- one big fuckfest. One incarnation to the next. I think you guys are the most celibate generation so far. Before you we were hooking up left and right. I think we all got trashed and had an orgy once. Things were wild,' Dick said.

'I can't believe I ended up in the Teen Virgins,' conner griped.

'I feel sorta messed up sitting here now like 'Oh When I Was A Young'n' when I'm only twenty, but it's,' Dick paused, 'I don't know that kind of behavior stopped being cute and started being frowned on. I was suddenly 'reckless' instead of fun or 'flighty' instead of spontaneous. Like you said. Things end for the reasons they start. Positives become negatives.'

'Damn magnets,' Tim threw in.

They snickered.

'I've never really done relationships,' Tim said then.

The room sobered, softly, laughter dying down, attention training on him.

'What?' he asked.

'Nothing, we're just listening,' Dick said.

'You're weird but whatever,' Tim told him.

'Didn't you have girlfriends, Tim?' Kon asked. 'You always said you had a girlfriend back home.'

Tim waved a hand. 'Oh yeah. I did the whole serial monogamy thing, but it never really counted. I mean. I don't know this is making me sound mean. Like I didn't care at all. I did. I care about all the girls I date. We're really good friends,' he said.

Dick nodded. 'But that's it, huh?'

'No! I don't know. I don't want it to be. I want it to work it just doesn't. It's not them it's me. I'm not right. I keep coming back to it and trying again and it never works out I don't understand. I mean even now, Even with Tam. I don't know. I like her so much. I really do it's not like I don't but it's not,' he trailed off, not having the words.

Conner was giving him an oddly reserved look, but Dick seemed sympathetic. 'So what would you count as a relationship?' he asked.

'I don't know,' Tim said. 'I never really had a relationship.'

Conner looked away from him.

'Not something I could really feel comfortable calling that anyway. It's a big word isn't it? Relationship? And how big is it to say you're dating? It's okay to say that kind of stuff about a girl, but it doesn't work out. There's something wrong with me. But how do you ever say that about a guy? It's gross isn't it? I mean even you and Bruce keep that kind of thing secret and Kon, you've never really 'dated' another boy at all. Even if you liked them or you fucked them, you never dated them.'

'Me and Bruce are private people because we're public and the media has a way with things, that doesn't have anything to do with what we think about that kind of thing,' Dick said.

Conner gave them an amused huff. 'Man you ever try to pick up a date at a rave or a party who doesn't just wanna fuck and fly?'

Dick held out an indicating hand as if to uplift his point. 'It's harder sometimes, finding people in your own gender pool who wanna date not just hook up,' Dick said. 'Cause dating's risky. I mean have you ever seen Bruce bring a nice boy home?'

'No,' Tim said, laughing softly.

'Well it's not like he never did. When he was younger he had a couple recurring male dates. I remember when I was around thirteen, he and Harvey were really close and Harvey'd come over and they'd set themselves up in a secluded room and just 'talk' all night,' Dick explained. 'Course that was super down low because Harvey was married.'

'Harvey Dent?' Tim asked.

'Two face,' Dick confirmed. 'That was before the whole,' He made a motion toward the left half of his face, 'yeugh. When he still had most of his marbles intact and a whole face.'

'I thought Harvey hated Bruce,' Tim said.

Dick laughed, nervously, 'Well that's my fault.' He paused. 'Kinda. It was this whole thing with Vicky Vale. Mostly I'd blame her but Harvey blamed me. It made everything between the ugly.'

Tim nodded, instantly, knowing the incident in question, and that it should be steered clear of. It was one of those things that stiffened Bruce's spine at the barest mention. A dangerous pit of information that should not be toyed with. Just like most of Batman's past. Tim ,of course, was too curious not to know at least most of the details and particulars of what all happened back then with Vicky, but it wasn't something he liked to think about. 

Up until now it had made him feel insecure in his position next to Bruce, even as his adopted son once all the paper work was filed. The feeling that with the simplest word, any newspaper outlet or reporter could make his life seem tainted enough for it to be taken and replaced with a new one. He didn't like to think about that early moment at the beginning of things where they came so close to loosing everything.

'That's another big reason Bruce is secretive. Vicky never would have been able to make that case if he didn't have an underlying reputation as a 'sexual deviant'. You know how it is,' Dick said.

'Easily demonized,' Tim agreed.

Conner was still looking away from them very pointedly. Like he knew he had no business here.

'Dick what if they take them that way?' Tim asked, suddenly hysterical.

Conner's head whipped around, eyes wide with worry.

Dick reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. 'Tim what?' he asked

'What if someone says something like that about one of us? What if they try to take them, Dick?'

Dick's hand started to rub small circles into Tim's shoulder blade. 'It's alright, people don't make cases like that half so often anymore.'

'But it happened to you!' Tim insisted. 'They almost took you away!'

'It was a different time.'

'It was less than ten years ago, Dick! What if they say something like that about me? Or Conner? How hard would it be to make either one of us look completely morally depraved and unfit to be parents? We're not even legally aged to have ch-' Tim cut off.

They were both staring at him, horrified.

He was crying.

'What if they take them away?' he asked again.

'No one even knows about them,' Dick assured him.

'They will at some point! What am I gonna do? I'm guilty! There's so much bad stuff on my hands! I've completely debased myself as a person! What if someone found out about all that! What if Someone Told on me? Kids I used to go to high school with, anyone! I never thought it through I always did it when I wanted to have my life go to hell, but I suddenly care about what happens a year from now or five years from now and I don't know what to do!'

This was confusing. Unclassifiable. An emotional cryptid. So much was going on. So much had happened lately. Everything was moving so fast and he couldn't process all the potential bad end scenarios in time to plan for them all effectively before one could crop up. Tim pushed his hands into his face to hide it. The tears. His fear, shame, and embarrassment.

Conner wrapped an arm around his back, and pulled him close. 'What's he talking about?' he asked Dick.

Dick shook his head, and kept trying to be calming. 'Did they get it on tape, Baby Bird because unless you got photographed or recorded usually it's pretty easy to dispute these things.'

'Really?' Tim asked.

'Honey, you're a Wayne. Anyone trying to level charges against you is gonna be under more suspicion than you are. Do you remember the hit Vicky's career took in the two years following those trials? It was nearly journalism suicide. Even now people don't take her half as seriously as they used to and she completely ruined her chances of being Gotham's own Lois Lane like everyone said she was gonna be. Now she writes a catty relationship advice column and does fluff pieces. The entire city's on your side, and you have the best lawyers in America. No one could prove they fucked Timothy Drake Wayne without at least hard visuals, and even then I'm not sure. They'd have to have your semen to think they had it in the bag.'

'You think so?' Tim asked.

'I know so. I watched Bruce navigate these rapids. People target you for being public and not straight. It happens. But you're one of Gotham's sweethearts as part of this family and you have money. You're not in a position where you're easy to exploit. You're lucky Tim. You can do what you makes you happy and feel safe doing it,' Dick insisted.

Conner pressed a soft kiss to the crown of his head.

Tim wasn't sure.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is late because i found a kitten someone dumped in an alley right before i was gonna post and i can't be fucked to even spell check it and that's the most 'dog ate my homework' excuse but i'm only saying it so i get to tell someone i found a kitten because it's kind of exciting news even if my eight year old cat is ready to commit murder
> 
> also he's not a normal kitten because he's a tortishell. yeah you heard that right. He's a Tortishell. 
> 
> my wife found a chimera behind the fucking USA mart. fucking rare chimera cat spawn.
> 
> Edit: i am still working on this, but i noticed there's no Bruce Wayne/Lincoln March shit and literally what the fuck?

Conner was distant after that, and Tim wasn't sure exactly why. He was warm, and comforting still, but reserved. This happened somethings. It had happened before. There were weeks and even months in Tim's memory where Conner went-

Away.

Probably, he figured, it was an imitation of his general behavior, but there was the real possibility that it had something to do with Luthorian epigenetics. Mental illness, or peculiarity passed from donor to recipient. Sometimes, Tim thought, maybe Conner's warm emotional front was a facade like Dick's, covering for a rapidly growing cold somewhere underneath the skin that was eating away at everything living within. A personal ice age.

Roxy didn't seem to notice, and neither did Rex which could make you wonder how well they knew Superboy at all. 

Tim didn't know how to ask though. What it was. Why Conner was gone even while he was still there.

Would their children do this? Look at him in a way sometimes that made him feel like they didn't see him at all? Was this a bad sign? How did someone-

Fix something like this?

After two days, ever more aware of the passage of time meaning the eminent arrival of very important and strange guests that would be with them for the next eighteen plus years if things went right -and they all hoped to God it went right- he asked Roxy if she had noticed anything strange.

'About the kid?' she asked, shutting her bedroom door behind him and indicating he should sit on her bed. 'Not really. I mean maybe he's a little less ecstatic than last week but Geez who could keep that shit up long? He was bound'a run outta steam at some point.

Tim pressed his lips together, and stared at the slightly water damaged carpet on her floor. 'I think it might be more than that,' he told her.

'Well I wouldn't know then. He was always real open when I knew him good last. I been noticing since we got back a lot's changed about him. I hardly feel alright calling him 'kid' anymore at all. Makes me feel young sometimes. Hard'a remember he's only 'bout 4 years old,' Roxy said.

'Mm,' Tim agreed.

A slight silence elapsed, where he considered her words. 

After a while Roxy sighed. 'Y'know I wasn't around for Tana dying or anything, but I did see him pretty soon after and- I think it made a big impact. Maybe also loosing everything in Hawaii screwed him up too, I don't know, but he almost cried when I said me an' daddy were stayin.'

Tim looked her a moment. She was tall, pretty, blonde, a complete firecracker. She reminded him of Stephanie in a way that was almost painful. She reminded him of Cassie even more. Hard on the outside like a warrior, tough looking, showing no obvious weakness, but delicate underneath that. A girl from the lower rungs with a lot to gain, and not much else at all. Tim had known a hundred Roxys. He'd met them in alleys as victims and criminals, never broken down, with fire in their eyes. She was observant, and smart. He knew that. A quick learner she had to be. Harder than anything. Assertive enough to pul the reigns out of her own father's hands and raise him more than he raised her from a young age. She was a role a lot of soft young women with cruel lives took. Tim could almost see the places she'd been and the things she'd endured in the way she stood, and moved. The words she chose.

She'd been with bad people at some point. Dated the wrong boys. Found herself attracted to danger. Saw Kon as a perfect in between. Kind but reckless. What she felt for him was more idealistic infatuation than love, and maybe she knew that. He definitely did. 

As for what she thought of him it was clear as well. She was wary. She wanted to test him so that he could be proven worthy of a boy she cared for deeply.

'I was with him right after,' Tim admitted. 'Our team was. We helped bring down the Agency together. It messed with him pretty bad, but he was never very open about it.'

Roxy made a face. 'See? That just doesn't sound like him,' she said. 'He was always so quick to talk about everything. He felt lots and he'd tell you. Wore his heart on his sleeve so everyone could see it was gold.'

'Well by the time I knew him well he was no Ponyboy,' Tim explained.

'Have you talked to Dubbliex?' she asked then. 'Nobody ever understood Conner like Dubs. I mean how could they? He's a telepath.'

'Do you know where I could find him?'

It was a bit of digging. He brought Oracle in on it, only needing to say the words 'Cadmus' 'Telepathic' and 'DNAlien' to catch her interest.

'Does this have anything to do with your orders for cribs?' she asked.

'Shut up,' Tim told her, and she did.

By that night, she'd found a file trail that indicated there was a man named Dougles Donovan living in th estate of Hawaii with no real past, and ties to the Moon family, who may have immigrated from the Kurtzberg area.

Tim told Conner he was catching a flight to San Fran to see the children, and asked him to stay behind with Dick, rigging their bedroom with red sun lights. Conner had reluctantly agreed but not without calling him David Byrne again.

He landed in Hawaii around 10:40, and took a boat to Honolulu. By the time he'd gotten to Dougles Donovan's home, it was around 12:00.

He knocked on the door five times before it was opened.

A thin man of average height with dark skin and a bald head opened the door in pink pajamas, a soft mint bathrobe and matching slippers. 'Do I know you?' he asked.

'We have mutual friends,' Tim explained. 

An expression of reserved understanding crossed the man's face. 'Does he know you're here?'

'By now probably, unless you're directly interfering with that,' Tim said. 'He has an interest in me.'

'Dougles' sighed heavily and invited him in.

'You have questions for me,' he said knowingly, 'About Superboy.'

'Yes,' Tim agreed. 'I came to ask for some help understanding him.'

'Maybe he needs help understanding you,' 'Dougles' said sortly.

'Maybe we could both use your help.'

'I'm done offering that. I'm here to have a simple, quiet life. One that's normal,' Dougles told him.

'That's what we want,' Tim explained.

'Dougles' turned to look at him with considerate eyes, curious, sizing him up. 'You're going to be a father,' he observed.

Tim nodded. 'We are.'

'Dougless' gave him a very nervous look, then his shoulders slouched and he seemed to melt away, leaving a strange, wiry, gray man with horns on his head. 'He was like a son to me, once,' he said wearily. 'But that family was lost.'

'Things are complicated right now,' Tim said impatiently. 'I don't wanna pull you away from your life here, but there are problems at home, and I thought maybe I should ask his father-'

Wide, white eyes turned on him.

'I need to make arrangements,' Dubbilex said. 

By dawn they were on a flight back to Gotham. By 12 noon, Conner was waiting in the front yard, sitting on the step, a long blade of grass in his mouth, and a stink eye slapped on his face as Tim pulled their car into the driveway.

'He's changed,' Doubilex observed quietly as Tim put the car in park.

Tim could see it clearly now too that more than one person pointed it out. He was more withdrawn than he used to be. More sober, and serious, as he stood up on the front step, and lifted off the ground to drift toward them. 

'Checkin' on the kids, huh?' he asked as Tim opened the door. 'Who's in the car with you? Is it Tam?'

Tim felt jitters run along his spine at the mention of Tam's name. He hadn't spoken to her since he'd been certain Conner was alive. She was probably pretty pissed at him, honestly. That relationship, though unattended to, was probably already over without him having to say anything. How had Conner found out?

Dubbilex opened the passenger side door, and stood up. He didn't say anything, but Conner stopped in his tracks. A bit more heavily than usual, Superboy's feet met the ground. He was open again, in that instance, suddenly legible, like hand writing that had improved, not over multiple journal entries of practice but all at once.

Tim didn't need to be telepathic to know that Kon had never expected to see this father figure again in his life, and doing so now brought up some buried, unknown hurt.

'You're here,' Conner said.

'I am,' Dubbilex agreed. 

Conner took a deep, steadying, breath. Looked at Tim unsure. And, like it happened with Flashes and Supers, suddenly some of the essential frames in the movie of Tim's life ended up on the cutting room floor.

Dubbilex wasn't on the ground anymore, rather floating about three feet above it, looking a bit dumb struck and Superboy smothered him in a bear hug. 

'Superboy, please,' he said, voice slightly panicked.

It seemed to make Conner remember himself as he sobered and set the DNAlien down as gently as possible.

'You're not,' he said then, perceptive as ever, 'happy to see me, are you?'

Something that might have been guilt flashed across Dubbilex's face. 'Well, ah, no,' he said. 'I'm not exactly happy to be here.'

Conner's hands were off the man as quickly as they'd been on him. Affection taken as swiftly as it was offered.

'Well then let's not keep you, huh?' he asked, ushering the DNAlien back toward the car.

'Superboy, your partner came to ask me for some help in divining your recent upset, but I think you've already made it clear what exactly was bothering you,' Dubbilex said.

Kon gave Tim a flat look over the car. 'If you wanted to know you could have asked me,' he said.

Dubbilex coughed lightly into his fist.

'This is unbelievable,' Conner continued, throwing his hands up in the air. 'If anyone needs a mind reader to understand the person he's about to spend the rest of his life with it's me! You don't tell me anything! You're all walls, and I try to be as understanding and respectful of your privacy as possible but this is the number one reason none of your fucking relationships work Tim! Because you can't stop fucking lying to everyone around you! You're not Batman! You're about to fucking retire! Get Over it and fucking talk to me!'

Tim blinked at him blankly. Things seemed very simple in Conner's world. Tim wished, not for the first time that he lived in that world too. But he didn't. 

'Do we have to do this here?' Tim asked.

Conner threw his arms out again, and leaned back to look around him. 'Yes!' he shouted.

'Fine. What do you wanna know?'

'Why are you so belligerent in fighting me whenever I come up with a solution? What's eating you up about the idea of having more people around to support us and our new family? Why are you so fucking ashamed of me? Why is it so hard for you to ask me simple questions about what's going on that I'd be happy to answer that you think it's a good idea to fly to Hawaii and drag someone who doesn't give a shit about me anymore all the way across the fucking country so he can read my mind? Why can't you say we're in a relationship? How come every time I turn around there's a new girl on your arm?'

Dubbilex blinked at Tim, then looked at Conner. 'He's the one who's good at solving problems, do you really think you're better than him at coming up with solutions or planning for the future?' he asked.

'No we're better at everything together. I don't think I'm better than you, but my ideas can help us out so we find solutions quicker,' Conner explained.

Tim felt intensely violated.

'It's not people, it's women. You keep trying to bring in some sort of mother figure. Because you want to replace him. Because he's not good enough to be a proper influence on children when he's broken. What kind of hubris was it for him to think he could somehow create children? lay father and mother at once?' Dubbilex said, effortly translating into words thoughts Tim had wrestled to pin down for weeks.

'Oh, Tim,' Kon said, voice low all the sudden, soft.

The humiliation in Tim;s throat felt like it would eat all the air out of his lungs like a fire in a locked room. 

'Kids don't need a mom, they need- I don't know. I talked to Ma about it a lot on the farm. They need people around who can understand and relate to them, and other kids they're close to, you know? I'm not trying to find a mother to replace you.'

Tim put a hand over his forehead to hide his eyes. This was potentially the most awkward conversation he'd ever had in his life, but he could only blame himself. He'd set his own ass up for this.

Dubbbilex took a breath and Tim braced himself, having no idea what was going to come spilling so frankly out of his head next. 'He can't love you because you're a boy. If someone knew he loved you anyway it would be a complete scandal. This is a sin, and he'll go to hell for it. He knows it. It'll probably make him sick and kill him too, which he's known for a long time. Bringing kids into this kind of a life style isn't only cruel it's sick. They'll probably end up broken by association with you.'

Conner blanched a sort of ashy, gray color. Tim couldn't tell if it was brought on by an undertone in his skin, or the shine of his TTK as the sun hit it. 'No,' he said, looking between Tim and Dubbilex. 'No. That's crazy. That doesn't make sense. This is fine.'

'How do you know?' Tim asked, fingers clamping shut over his eyes so all he could see was part of the car and the ground.

Kon didn't say anything.

When Tim looked up he was gaping, openly. 'Thinking like that's horrible,' he said.

'It's true,' Tim argued. 'You saw living in Smallville. It's true.'

'No! Those people are fucked up and backwards! I love you! And that's fucking normal!' Conner shouted. There was something that looked like real panic starting in the back light behind his irises. He was deathly still all of the sudden, skin going from ash gray to a sort of steel blue color. He looked sick and terrified. Like he'd seen a ghost or a basilisk and it had frozen him on the spot. Tim had only seen him look like that once, and it was standing in the snow outside Agency headquarters just after Tana died.

'Superboy, stop,' Dubbilex said then, putting a hand on Kon's shoulder. 'Everything's fine.'

'No,' Conner said thickly.

'It will be alright. Just calm down.'

'I can't. I don't know what to do,' Kon told him in a small voice.

'Timothy is hurt in a way that leads him to believe fallacies, and subscribe to common cultural delusions. This is fixable with support and reassurance,' Dubbilex explained.

'Really?' Conner asked.

Dubbilex nodded.

'I'm sorry he dragged you out here but I really miss you,' Conner said, skin slowly starting to fade back to a normal color.

'Tim has trouble communicating with you because he is not skilled with words, or very emotionally developed for his age. He has a very limited amount of examples of healthy communication, and is doing his best,' Dubbilex said simply.'It is difficult to admit to being with you for the same reasons he has trouble accepting his attraction to you. He dates women in order to upkeep a public image of social decency for fear of being targeted and vilified if it were obvious he were attracted to men.'

Tim felt a little cold and empty. Like he wasn't really standing there listening to this. More like he was a literary character being described to a classroom by an English teacher. Or the ghost of a dead man listening to his brother explain his thoughts and actions to his son at his funeral.

'Why's he think all that nasty stuff?' Conner asked then.

'Parents, social grooming, and religion,' Dubbilex said matter of factly.

Conner had never experienced a single one of those things. Tim blinked blankly at the driveway. It all seemed so surreal. Here a little gray man was describing his every thought to them out loud like he were reading out bylines in the morning paper.

'That's a lot of shit to work through,' Kon said.

'Yes and I haven't even begun to touch on your abandonment issues. Would you like to invite me in for a cup of tea so we can catch up. I may have been a bit hasty in leaving you behind at Cadmus after Tana's death.'

Conner offered the man a comfortable smile. 'Yeah. I'd love that,' he said.

It was surreal. Conner had set them up a proper living room by then, and showed Dubbilex into it with the brief promise of snacks and drinks before being gone in the time it took Tim to blink.

'He's grown,' Dubbilex said, then, voice sober.

'Mm,' Tim agreed.

'I hadn't realized,' he said then.

'Mm,' Tim reiterated.

The DNAlien turned to him then. 'I get the feeling you're overwhelmed.'

'Don't have to read my mind for that?' Tim asked, dryly.

'No,' the man said. Tim sighed, and sank into an armchair.

'I don't know what I was thinking,' he said.

Dubbilex watched him silently.

'This isn't what I expected though. Conner's- I don't know,' Tim trailed off.

'Normally I find it quite rude,' Dubbilex explained, 'to root through someone else's mind, even if I was made to do it. It's an invasion of privacy.'

Tim nodded in agreement.

'However,' the man continued, 'in certain cases I feel some people can become too attached to their privacy. You've kept yourself clouded in secrets your whole life. It isn't sustainable. You will end up like the rest of your family. Scared, alone, and without connection. I let that happen to myself once, and know that it can be too painful to endure. I kept secrets, and expected others to understand me despite that. When I felt alone I thought that those close to me would reach out to cross the widening gap between us, but I did not ask, or communicate. By this, I lost some of the people dearest to me. I lost someone who is now very dear to you.'

Tim stared at the woodgrain of the coffee table. 

'You could loose him,' Dubbilex said in plainer terms.

'I know.'

'You could loose them all.'

'What do I do?'

'Talk.'

Nothing was really that simple was it?


End file.
